- Joined
- Jan 29, 2009
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- 413
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Hello everyone,
There seems to be a lot of discontent with the APA Practice organization (on my part as well). I was wondering what the APAPO/APA needs to do to better advocate for our field. Ideal solutions would be ones that benefit all practitioners, such as higher reimbursement rates for psychotherapy, assessment, etc. I have a few ideas:
-It seems that many neurologists, etc. are not using neuropsych testing as they are not fully aware of the benefits of testing, and the valuable functional data it can provide. I am concerned that a lot of potential referrals are lost due to ignorance of physicians or a lack of advocacy on our part. I don't have much firsthand experience here, but I heard a few post-docs complaining about that at my last externship.
-Educating counselors, and other Master's level clinicians on reasons for psychological testing, and some of the benefits of psychological testing that can help them help their clients. Perhaps we can work with CACREP (the accreditation system that sets the curriculum for counseling programs) to help train counselors how and when to refer for psych testing. The same can apply for psychiatrists as well.
-Polling our referral sources (psychiatrists, neurologists, etc.) to see how often they use psych testing, and what would be most helpful for them, what sorts of needs do they have that we can better address, etc. It seems that if we made psychological testing more user-friendly and less pedantic, it would be utilized more often.
- There NEEDS to be a better line of communication between APA and APA members, particularly when it comes to advocacy. The APA seems to insulate themselves, and a cost of this is that they push for things that don't necessarily mesh with the desires of the field. I don't see a lot of attempts on their part to take polls, votes, etc. to see what is most important to practitioners, and how we feel APAPO is meeting our needs.
-Establishing psychologists role in psychotherapy. One avenue here is supervision of master's level providers. We have training in research and supervision and can help train Master's level counselors to meet their hours for obtaining their license. Also, polling referral sources (psychiatrists, physicians) to determine how often then refer for therapy (my guess is that this will be lower than it should be), and determining ways of improving that rate.
All of my solutions focus on generating more volume, but don't necessarily increase the payments for our services, as managed care is squeezing the costs these days. I don't have much of an idea about how to address that problem, which is a large one to tackle. Is there a way we can get more money out of managed care for our services? Is psychiatry doing something here that we are not?
There seems to be a lot of discontent with the APA Practice organization (on my part as well). I was wondering what the APAPO/APA needs to do to better advocate for our field. Ideal solutions would be ones that benefit all practitioners, such as higher reimbursement rates for psychotherapy, assessment, etc. I have a few ideas:
-It seems that many neurologists, etc. are not using neuropsych testing as they are not fully aware of the benefits of testing, and the valuable functional data it can provide. I am concerned that a lot of potential referrals are lost due to ignorance of physicians or a lack of advocacy on our part. I don't have much firsthand experience here, but I heard a few post-docs complaining about that at my last externship.
-Educating counselors, and other Master's level clinicians on reasons for psychological testing, and some of the benefits of psychological testing that can help them help their clients. Perhaps we can work with CACREP (the accreditation system that sets the curriculum for counseling programs) to help train counselors how and when to refer for psych testing. The same can apply for psychiatrists as well.
-Polling our referral sources (psychiatrists, neurologists, etc.) to see how often they use psych testing, and what would be most helpful for them, what sorts of needs do they have that we can better address, etc. It seems that if we made psychological testing more user-friendly and less pedantic, it would be utilized more often.
- There NEEDS to be a better line of communication between APA and APA members, particularly when it comes to advocacy. The APA seems to insulate themselves, and a cost of this is that they push for things that don't necessarily mesh with the desires of the field. I don't see a lot of attempts on their part to take polls, votes, etc. to see what is most important to practitioners, and how we feel APAPO is meeting our needs.
-Establishing psychologists role in psychotherapy. One avenue here is supervision of master's level providers. We have training in research and supervision and can help train Master's level counselors to meet their hours for obtaining their license. Also, polling referral sources (psychiatrists, physicians) to determine how often then refer for therapy (my guess is that this will be lower than it should be), and determining ways of improving that rate.
All of my solutions focus on generating more volume, but don't necessarily increase the payments for our services, as managed care is squeezing the costs these days. I don't have much of an idea about how to address that problem, which is a large one to tackle. Is there a way we can get more money out of managed care for our services? Is psychiatry doing something here that we are not?