There is an interesting article in the NY Times that focuses on a psychiatrist who today engages in dispensing medications instead of using psychotherapy though he was trained in talk therapy but had to changes post-2000 when the insurance companies would no longer pay "sufficiently" for talk therapy. See: http://tinyurl.com/NYT-talktherapy
Quoting from the article: |The switch from talk therapy to medications has swept psychiatric |practices and hospitals, leaving many older psychiatrists feeling |unhappy and inadequate. A 2005 government survey found that |just 11 percent of psychiatrists provided talk therapy to all patients, |a share that had been falling for years and has most likely fallen |more since. Psychiatric hospitals that once offered patients months |of talk therapy now discharge them within days with only pills. | |Recent studies suggest that talk therapy may be as good as or |better than drugs in the treatment of depression, but fewer than |half of depressed patients now get such therapy compared with |the vast majority 20 years ago. Insurance company reimbursement |rates and policies that discourage talk therapy are part of the reason. |A psychiatrist can earn $150 for three 15-minute medication visits |compared with $90 for a 45-minute talk therapy session. | |Competition from psychologists and social workers — who unlike |psychiatrists do not attend medical school, so they can often afford |to charge less — is the reason that talk therapy is priced at a lower |rate. There is no evidence that psychiatrists provide higher quality |talk therapy than psychologists or social workers. | |Of course, there are thousands of psychiatrists who still offer talk |therapy to all their patients, but they care mostly for the worried wealthy |who pay in cash. In New York City, for instance, a select group of |psychiatrists charge $600 or more per hour to treat investment bankers, |and top child psychiatrists charge $2,000 and more for initial evaluations. Even so, there are some patients/clients that are okay with just receiving medication, indeed, when told to get "therapy" from a psychologist or social worker, often do not follow up on the suggestion. The psychiatrist being profiled allowed some of his patients to be interviewed for the article and most said that they were satisfied with their treatment. Here is the psychiatrist's reaction: |Dr. Levin expressed some astonishment that his patients admire |him as much as they do. | |“The sad thing is that I’m very important to them, but I barely know |them,” he said. “I feel shame about that, but that’s probably because |I was trained in a different era.” -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=9205 or send a blank email to leave-9205-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
