The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (11/13, Schmid) reports that despite steadily rising rates of suicide, severe depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other mental illnesses across the US, mental healthcare remains “severely underfunded.” For example, “government reimbursements for mental and behavioral health services are 19 percent to 22 percent below payments for conventional medical or surgical care, according to the Seattle-based Milliman Inc. research group,” thereby making “it a struggle for” healthcare professionals “to justify offering those services even as the same funding imbalance also puts downward pressure on salaries for mental health practitioners,” including psychiatrists. In Wisconsin, 48 of 72 counties “lack even one practicing child psychiatrist, according to the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.”
Related Links:
— “As epidemic of U.S. mental illness worsens, so does the funding gap to provide care, “John Schmid, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, November 13, 2018.