Title: Psychologists seek authority to prescribe psychotropic medications - The Washington Post
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Content: Physician groups such as the American Medical Association and some patient advocacy groups, however, are cool to the idea of letting psychologists prescribe drugs. “ These are serious drugs with serious side effects,” says Mike Fitzpatrick, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, a consumer advocacy organization. “ We feel strongly that [prescribing] should be handled by someone with medical training.” The problem is likely to become more acute with an estimated 32 million people expected to gain health insurance under the health-care overhaul law. The Association of American Medical Colleges projects a shortage of 45,000 primary-care physicians alone by 2020. Experts agree that solutions lie in better integration between primary care and mental health care. This makes sense in part because for more than a third of patients with mental health problems, the only practitioner they see is a primary-care provider. In addition, people with chronic illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease and asthma are significantly more likely to have mental health problems than those without chronic illness. People with serious mental illness, in fact, die 25 years sooner, on average, than the rest of the population. The health-care overhaul, with its emphasis on medical homes and accountable care organizations that take responsibility for managing a patient’s health rather than just providing medical services, offers promising models for integration, experts agree.