Problems In Mental Health Care

1912 Words8 Pages
In the United States, the amount of people with mental health issues is on the rise even though there are facilities and services for treatment. People struggle to get treatment for many reasons: their financial situation, their willingness to get help, their perception on mental illnesses due to society, and many more. Integrating mental health care into the primary care system will make mental health care more accessible at every level allowing more people to have the ability and strength to get help for their problems. In the United States, the amount of people with mental health is issues is high. According to the Galegroup research database in their article “Mental Disorders,” 18.5 percent of adults in the United States have a mental…show more content…
In the article “Integrated Primary Care: Why You Should Care and How to Get Started,” Mark E. Vogel, an Associate Professor of Family Medicine and an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Michigan State University, writes about the research of integrated care. The research shows that the mental health care system provides many services, but there are people who are not able to get treatment or maintain their treatment (Vogel et al.). Due to problems in the healthcare industry, many people can not start or continue treatment for their mental health issues. The services are here for the people but not everyone has the ability to get the treatment they need. In addition, people are not getting proper treatment due lack of information and resources on mental health. In the article, “Accessing behavioral health resources though primary-care providers,” Rachel Z. Arndt, a writer for Modern Healthcare, explains how people could start getting treatment and a way to change the process. Primary care doctors may not have enough training in mental health, but they provide the start of psychiatric care for many patients (qtd. in “Accessing behavioral health resources though primary-care providers”). This shows that many people would rather go to their primary care doctor before they are provided services from mental health facilities…show more content…
It could be more expensive than going to a mental health facility or doctor. In the article, “Mental Health Services in Primary Care: Integrating Behavior Health Services into the Primary Care Setting Can Be Beneficial for the Patient as Well as Profitable for the Pediatrician,” Jay Rabinowitz, a clinical professor in the Department of Pediatrics in the University of Colorado, talks about planning for integrated care facilities and the complications during the process. Rabinowitz states that the challenging part for integrated care is finding ways for reimbursement for patients (Rabinowitz). Finding ways to give treatment to patients at a lower cost is difficult because of insurance policies and state regulations. In addition to reimbursement, “Insufficient training capacity and practical experience is a major barrier to effective integration and costs organizations time and money ” (Martin). Because this system is developing in the healthcare industry, a lot of money is put into the training and research to make it successful. In addition, costs for building facilities and finding doctors and nurses can increase as well. It may seem that it will be better for facilities to have integrated care, the costs for doctors, facilities, and patients can be
Open Document