Access to Psychiatric Care Resource Documents

Task Force | Resource Documents

Access to Care Task Force: You Can Help!

As clinicians on the front line we are often frustrated and even demoralized over problems associated with trying to deliver appropriate and effective care to our patients. Difficulty involving patient access to recommended levels, intensity and duration of care are painful realities in our practices. Problems related to parity of insurance coverage are ongoing but often the issues are complex and the guidelines are unclear (an excellent resource is the APA's "Parity Toolkit" on the APA website). Subtle and not so subtle barriers to effective care are endemic, including increasing out of pocket expenses for patients, arbitrary limits to number of sessions or CPT service type, prior authorization, utilization review, medical necessity criteria and the ever increasing intrusion and disruption of care related to pharmacy benefit management and formulary restriction. Many of these and other barriers disrupt access to appropriate care and adherence to recommended care or continuity of care leading to adverse outcomes for patients. Delayed and deferred care increases disability and severity of illness with significant Public Health implications.

As busy clinicians we generally don't have the time or energy to deal with these issues in an effective way. The California Psychiatric Association (CPA) Access to Care Task Force is an APA Assembly Executive Committee/CPA joint initiative to help practicing psychiatrists and their patients at the grass roots level. The Task Force will collect and collate vignettes, case examples and patterns of barriers to access to appropriate care or implementation of parity. This data will be useful at the state and national level to help shape health care reform implementation.

Please join us. Take a small amount of your valuable time and help provide grassroots clinical data which reflects these experiences. Vignettes and single case examples are welcomed and in fact are necessary to put a human face on the realities of health care. Our intention is to shine a light on problems in order to improve quality of care and treatment outcome and to support practicing psychiatrists the trenches. Send your information to calpsych@calpsych.org - and please keep our email address handy for easy use.

Access to Care Resource Documents

• APA Pharmacy Benefit Management Resource Document (2002).

• APA Pharmacy Benefit Management Policy Statement (2007).

• Mental Health Parity Implementation Coalition Resources, Including Parity Appeals Toolkit.

• APA Integrated Care Resource Center.

• Enhancing Access to Psychiatric Care Medicine and Psychiatric Medicine Collaboration Challenges. Eliot Sorel, M.D., D.L.F.A.P.A. Vice-Chairman Roger Peele, M.D., D.L.F.A.P.A. Chairman APA Access to Care Work Group.