Psychiatrists: Less Talk More Pills

[OneTampa]

Article in USA Today about psychiatrists being pressured by insurance companies to lessen talk therapy with
patients and just prescribe them pills instead.

Article link: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-08-05-psychiatrist-prescriptions_N.htm

[Peter6836]

This is something that I have noticed happening in the last twenty years. More and more Pyschiatrists spend fifteen minutes with their patients and then just start writing scripsts. I am having a problem with this very method I am on so many different drugs now that I am having great problems functioning on a normal level. It is a shame that insurance agencies have become the ones to control our health care systems not the medical profession. It is also a shame that so many medical professionals follow their rules and do not provide the help and support that their patients need. What a mess.
Peter

[Miss Philicia]

It's somewhat common practice to have a psychiatrist writing your scripts with only a 15 minute session, and a separate person providing 45 min/1 hour talk therapy.  I know where I go that it's done that way because of Medicare billing, and in fact what's even more annoying is that I can't do both appointments on the same day, but that when I do see the actual talk therapist I must see them on a day when the prescribing doctor is on staff.  Sounds confusing, but I suspect that they bill everything to Medicare under the one doctor's name.  This is a low-brow place for us unemployed AIDS schmucks so I don't complain, as I don't pay anything nor do I recall ever seeing a statement regarding billing from Medicare.

But I'll also not that even when I was on private insurance in NYC when I was still gainfully employed it was done mostly in this manner.  Of course, the separate appointments/doctors makes for lousy, less efficient treatment IMO.  When I first began mental health treatment in 2000 my first psychiatrist did BOTH medication prescribing and hour long talk therapy -- and it was definitely my best experience.  I'm fortunate that my first encounter with psychiatry was with him and in this manner, but it's VERY difficult to locate someone who will do this as obviously it's a money matter.  This psychiatrist wasn't a money grubber I guess, and as he was Jewish we can see that known stereotype debunked   He was also gay, kind of cute, incredibly caring, and well versed in med interactions with HIV meds.

Bottom line though, while it's more effort I *highly* recommend combining talk therapy with the use of psych meds.

[weasel]

hullo Peter  ,
                      I know what you mean , I go to the V.A. and they are the same way .

                       I have moved my V.A. care  to Saint Louis , Mo. they are much more in tune

                        with HIV / AIDS  patients  , I will now have the best in care , I have exspessed

                       my feeling with the Poplar Bluff V.A. . They do not handle   MENTAL   issues  very  well .

                       They seem almost ROBOTIC     after  4 years of " help " I feel no better .

                       My first encounter  with a Saint Louis PHD doctor of mental health made me feel like there

                       is hope of  over comming a lifetime of depression 

                       I also take a multitude of pills , and feel like a walking  Zombi ! I love Zombis  . but would rather

                         not be one 

                      I found the same complaint , drug doctor was NOT talking enough , I think they should TALK 


                      As for myself I tend to talk differently to different doctors 
                                                                                     good luck with your doctor ,

                                                                                                                                Karl


             

[Peter6836]

I know all about the Zombie thing. I feel the same way I do not function all that well anymore and that is frightening. i shake and have tremors. I know that keeping a job would be a difficult thing right now. But I really need one. I am working on getting a disability retirement and SSDI but it takes so long. I keep wondering if I will have to loose everything before I get any help. In the mean time I have suicidal thoughts in order to get out of this situation just to end the whole thing. I do not know if I have the ability menatally to start all over again. All these drugs do not seem to make anything any better at all. Now I cannot cry or emote, but I do have all kinds of feelings that just sit and make me worried about the future.
Peter

[Graywolf]

I have to agree. I was in therapy with a shrink during the 70's who believed meds should be a choice of last resort, but that was before insurance companies wanted an instant cheap fix and not having to pay for someone spilling their guys hour after hour, "here take this domini domini thou art healed"

I watched an interesting documentary "Psychiatry, The Industry of Death" very interesting about the history of the practice, going back to drilling holes in patients heads to let demons out, lobotomies, ECT, Thorazine, LSD, etc which were the panacea of their times, leading up to the multi billion dollar psych med industry. Even the shrinks in the film admitted it's all based on pseudo science.