Anyone these days can call themselves a therapist and it seems this is what the products are directed at, so I don't think psychiatrists will necessarily benefit.
People are also increasingly skeptical of medications (and rightly so).
Our niche will still be in SMI, acute care and all the legal ramifications associated with it as well as 'high end' practice for the wealthier who care about the credentials of their providers.
I don't know about the "people are increasingly skeptical of medications" statement. I'll tell you that by the time people come to see me (and this is mostly kids, not even adults), they're pretty disappointed if they don't walk out with a prescription.
OP, this is a good question and one I've pondered myself. Possible ideas of the way this works out in terms of psychiatrists "benefitting" are:
- More abstract ideas that what we do is actually valuable. Psychiatry was (and still is often) the "not real medicine" medical field (both because of it's own history of actively rejecting medicalization of the field in the past and just perception by other specialities). Also because the conditions themselves have historically been more shameful than "real" medical conditions...there's a good personal experience article about this from a psychiatrist himself.
Personal experience: Coming out - the psychotic psychiatrist - an account of the stigmatising experience of psychiatric illness
- Increased demand for services...which can be a double-edged sword because if demand exceeds supply too much (as we're still seeing), it provides much more of an opening/argument for other professionals to come in and offer their services to "help the shortage" (ex. NPs). In a roundabout way though this could lead to....
- Possibly, possibly increased reimbursement (both cash and insurance markets) especially if enough patients bitch at their insurance companies that they have no access to psychiatry when they're trying to get in. Less social barrier to going to psychiatry means more people as willing to see a psychiatrist as they would a dermatologist.
Now, this is very theoretical as it requires the actual customers (the patients/companies buying insurance) to put pressure on the insurance companies to spend money to expand their network in a large way.
As much as we don't think they do, insurance companies do pay attention to see if their rates are competitive with other companies in the area and if/why they're having significant customer attrition, even though we may not see this on an individual level day to day (because of course their ultimate goal is to pay us as little as possible). HR for companies also have the ability to change what health insurance they contract out with and so if they get enough employees complaining about the mental health network coverage of a certain insurance provider for instance, they have the capability to switch the company from Cigna to BCBS or pressure Cigna to expand their network because they don't want to lose their employees to the guy down the street who has better health insurance offerings.
