AMERICANS FOR IMPROVED MENTAL HEALTHCARE **
Our Mental Healthcare System is Broken
Primary Care Doctors Are Unfairly Burdened
Primary care doctors in the United States prescribe about 80 percent of the medications being taken for depression, anxiety and other issues. This is because most patients cannot afford to see a psychiatrist. The average primary care doctor’s appointment lasts just eight minutes. These doctors do not have the time to discuss the patient’s reasons for looking sad or anxious during this brief appointment. Primary care doctors prescribe for symptoms of emotional distress without having the time to make a proper diagnosis of what is causing these concerns.
Psychiatrists Charge Steep Fees for Brief Appointments
Patients who see psychiatrists for their mental health prescriptions pay steep fees for very brief, ten to twenty minute appointments which are often conducted via telehealth rather than office visits. Psychiatrists have stopped providing psychotherapy in most cases and just prescribe drugs. While they know that psychotherapy sessions will boost the effects of any drugs they are prescribing, most have restricted their practices to just writing prescriptions since this generates the most income. Psychiatrists know that the drugs they prescribe do not cure or fix mental health problems but only suppress symptoms the way that cough syrup suppresses a cough. They dispense the minimum amount of medication so that the patient has to return to see them to get another refill of their prescription. This is true even for patients who have been on the same medication for years.
Most Practicing Psychiatrists in the United States Did Not Set Out to Practice Psychiatry
Because very few medical students choose to become psychiatrists most vacancies in the field (about 70 percent) are filled by doctors who trained outside the United States typically in some other medical specialty. They re-specialize as psychiatrists to come to the United States to make a better living. Many are unfamiliar with U.S. culture and English is often a second language for them. More importantly most studied to do something else in medicine and have little personal interest in mental health.
Medical Psychologists Provide Safer and Better Care.
How You Can Help
Like any other area of health care, mental health requires modernization. Since 2002 Medical Psychologists have been providing prescriptions to many patients within the United States. Currently six states allow medical psychologists to prescribe but special interest groups have worked hard to deny citizens this important additional way to receive mental health prescriptions. In the next pages we will show you how to help gain access to receive your medications directly from a properly trained medical psychologist who can provide psychotherapy for your issues or concerns along with medications. But you must use your voice to make your state legislators aware of the need to expand prescribing psychology beyond these few states. A sample email is provided for your use and in the pages that follow you will see who to send your email to based upon the state that you live in.
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