While primary care is experiencing its own workforce shortage, the profession is shouldering more mental health screenings to help bridge the behavioral health provider gap.
Francisco Garcia arrives at Kelsey-Seybold clinic in Sugar Land to see his doctor Spencer Berthelsen for annual physical. Sept. 22, 2011, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.It took one cancer patient 15 years ago to convince Barbara Chapman that the model of mental health treatment needed some serious work.
That seminal experience is why Chapman, who now serves as an assistant clinical professor for the family nurse practitioner and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner programs at the University of Texas at Tyler, has been an advocate for a better, collaborative care model for mental and medical health fields.
Experts say the best way to solve this crisis is by early diagnosing mental illness before it reaches a point where medical treatment, hospitalization, or other intensive services are needed. However,have found primary care physicians are often the first point of contact when it comes to mental illness, not behavioral health providers.
The federal government estimates that the United States will be short some 68,020 have a primary care physicians by 2036. Sartor believes primary care is well-positioned to impact the mental health crisis in Texas. He said patients usually prefer to meet with their primary care doctor about mental health, which allows them to be treated for everything under one roof, which is key for rural areas of the state.
As a psychiatrist and assistant professor of psychiatry at Dell Medical School, Koli has been answering primary care doctors’ questions as part of the state’sThe questions she takes range from “What kind of diagnosis goes with these symptoms?” to “What kind of medication is needed for anxiety?” to “Where should I refer someone with suicidal thoughts?”
Koli said that ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, she has seen a strong willingness from primary care providers to start getting involved with the program.
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