Is Psychotherapy "Medically Necessary"?

[MrsK]

http://www.slate.com/articles/health...de_mental.html

Interesting article from slate.com regarding insurance reimbursement for psychotherapy. It appears that this article was written by a PhD, not a psychiatrist, but the issues are the same regardless. How do we justify therapy costs? Protect doctors from being limited to med management?

[spaz]

Yeah, our insurance doesn't cover mental health. I went back to my doc for him to just make sure the Lexapro was going ok and they would not cover it.

[PrincessFiona]

Interesting article; and a discussion very much alive here. Psychiatry here loses money. We have one of the biggest inpatient facilities in the state and so far the hospital is committed to keeping it open, but there are some new talks about how to keep our mental health services alive.

[Pollyanna]

Dd20 psych doesn't take insurance. He is amazing and worth every penny (I'm not sure if he has a sliding scale of sorts but he does make sure that dd can get her meds at as much of a discounted price as possible) I have a feeling more and more psychiatrists and other physicians will be going this route as Obama care limits access and physician autonomy as well as salary.

Mental health care is certainly overlooked at a disastrous price to society.