Mental Health

Changes in Delivery of Mental Health Care Affects Patients

By November 28, 2014No Comments

The statin drugs used to lower cholesterol are now the most commonly prescribed medications in America.Get-Help-Now3 But right behind them are antidepressants. Doctors wrote 254 million prescriptions for antidepressants last year and Americans spend around $10 billion annually buying them. Mental health experts suggest this is largely due to some changes in the way healthcare is delivered.

Integrated Healthcare
Over the past dozen years there has been many changes in the way Americans receive their healthcare. One positive change has been the improved integration of behavioral health and primary health care. Mental health is no longer viewed solely as a sub-specialty but has been incorporated into the mainstream of well-care.

Today, primary care physicians write seven percent of all antidepressant prescriptions. It sounds like a small number, but it represents millions of prescriptions. And if estimates are correct, depression affects around 10 percent of the general population. It seems as though primary care providers are more aware of depression and are doing a better job of treating the condition. Yet, not all of the news is rosy.

Mental Health Shares Physical Health Care Delivery Challenges
One of the downsides to greater integration is that mental health now shares some of the very same challenges that are troubling physical health care. A visit to a psychiatrist, for instance, averages 30 minutes while most primary care consults last a mere 13 minutes. And while the psychiatric visit is focused entirely on mental health issues, the primary care visit will spend only a portion of the time focused on mental health concerns. Thus, most of those antidepressant prescriptions written by the primary care doctor are unconnected to any kind of specific diagnosis.

It is a good thing when patients are able to get help for mental health issues. However, if they are asking the primary care provider for treatment because their insurance doesn’t cover mental health care or because there is no psychiatrist in the area, they probably aren’t receiving adequate mental health care. At Family Guidance we work hand-in-hand with primary care providers to make sure that patients have a correct diagnosis and supportive treatment and not just a prescription for antidepressants. Call us and see how we can help.