Here’s some information about Wisconsin, and it’s not good:
“Wisconsin is facing a psychiatrist shortage, and it is worse in rural counties. The report shows that 20 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties have no practicing psychiatrist, and 10 have less than one full-time equivalent because they share over multiple counties. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services says fewer than one psychiatrist per 10,000 residents is a “significant shortage”, while the U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services defines “shortage areas” as those with one or fewer for every 30,000 people. Using the state standard, the Medical Society shows 55 counties have a psychiatrist shortage.”
"Wisconsin ranks 41st for prevalence of mental health (the low ranking indicates a higher prevalence of mental health and substance use issues). "
I realize that not all mental health treatment is provided by psychiatrists, but their services often are needed for serious disorders and to prescribe medications.
We are fortunate that we found a good doctor for our son in southern Maine, but a large percentage of the population in the state does not have that opportunity. When I speak to other parents, I’m appalled at the lack of services. And even if there ARE doctors, there often is no transportation available to get people to appointments.
Our son’s doctor is actually a child/adolescent psychiatrist - he agreed to keep seeing our son as an adult, thank God. He told us that a lot of child psychiatrists in Maine have retired recently, so there is an even greater shortage of that specialty.
I have been trying to find a therapist for over a year now. I haven’t been able to find one that was a good fit AND in-network. I can’t afford out of network.
Starting next week though I’m going to start going to the perinatal clinic at the depression center at u of m. Once they found out that I was trying to get pregnant, suddenly all these psychiatric doors opened for me that weren’t before. I had an appointment within 2 weeks. Go figure.
If I go into the reasons why our health care system is messed up, I’ll get too political. I will just say that many of the problems are directly traceable to former Governor Engler, currently the president of MSU (and one of the numerous reasons I am not giving a cent to my alma mater). Here’s some background: http://www.michiganradio.org/post/why-do-mental-health-resources-vary-so-widely-across-michigan
The final chapter of my dissertation traces the history of Michigan’s mental health care system after closing down in the 80s & 90s so this is a topic I know way too much about. It’s one of the reasons that I vehemently objected to Engler’s appointment.
I’m pretty sure ours in HI is abysmal as well. The things I heard as a special ed hearing officer were enough for me to be happy to leave that job. The court reporters at the hearings always said each case I heard was the saddest they’d ever heard.
It is terrible in Iowa, with most of the mental health institutions closed in recent years by the current and most recent governors. We have recently moved to California, where it seems to be better. It only took my son 5 weeks to get in to see one once we had our insurance in place.
D is a 3rd year med student and is considering child psychiatry for her specialty. Child psychiatrists are licensed adult psych docs first, then take extra residency time to add the child licensing.
In my area the shortage is largely pediatric services and inpatient services…but the wait is still fairly long for many noncrisis adult services. I was part of a large group that did a county study every year but I have been off that committee for three years. I have noticed some recommended improvements in the identified gap coverage in my area but there are still definitely varying availability community to community with the county. The poorest and the wealthiest counties used to be where the largest gaps were seen in the state overview. It would be interesting romanig if that is what you still see now. That feels logical to me for a number of reasons.
@momofthreeboys , I live near Madison, and I know there are many (although not necessarily enough) psychiatrists and psychologists here and in the greater Milwaukee area. My ex lives in a county in the middle of our state (i.e., in a less- but not sparsely poulated area) that has a lot of health-care providers generally but very few psychiatrists.
romani, few people realize what a terrible mess the Reagan era created. And it still continues. Few of the group homes and community plans were ever developed.
Way, way, way back when our now 29 year old was 9, he seemed out of sort, so we looked for some sort of psychological something or other. We got a recommendation for someone, but we were only allowed to see him at his clinic setting not his private office. Weirdly just taking our kid in once, seemed to make a huge difference. Later we discovered he had very mild Tourettes that manifested itself a year or two later, and the neurologist who saw him thought he had mild OCD. I think the’s on the normal side of the autism spectrum - but that’s my diagnosis, not anyone official. If the issues had been more serious, we would have tried harder, but it was all pretty discouraging. We are very lucky that our family has pretty good genes from a mental health point of view.
I can understand why so many Wisconsin counties lack a psychiatrist. So many rural places, especially in the north where you have to want that lifestyle. Not enough people in a given area to support a psychiatrist as well I’ll bet. Also harder to be an “only” anywhere. When you choose to live far from cities you choose the limits of availability of many services. Speaking as a physician in a different specialty.
Now in Florida where we find the health care less nice than in Wisconsin. Came from medium sized (tertiary care) city to large one. Too much testing by physicians here and not as well done in our physician opinions.
@oregon101, the crisis started way before Reagan’s time:
“The shift away from inpatient spending traces back to the 1960s, when states began moving away from institutionalization for the mentally ill.” People were supposed to be treated in small, community settings, but funding was NEVER provided for that. So now people end up in ERs or prisons.
We are so failing the mental health needs of our society. When I was a special ed hearing officer, it was so sad to hear what limited offerings our state had and what options were being proposed to try to save kids who weren’t getting the care and services they needed.
(Often it was proposed to send them to residential facilities in Utah where they could be locked up to age 18 so they would get treatment—if HI if they ran away police wouldn’t assist in retrieving them after age 14 or so). If they ran in Utah, authorities and police would get them back to continue treatment. Sending kids out of state was daunting, but leaving them in awful situations was not acceptable either.
