Need For More Child Psychiatric Facilities Now

The demand for child mental healthcare services is increasing and the amount of psychiatric facilities and psychiatrists is decreasing which is creating significant delays in treatment, poor patient outcome, and higher rates of adolescent suicide; we need to work towards a solution that will increase the availability of child mental healthcare in the United States. According to The National Council Medical Director Institute the workforce is unevenly distributed geographically across the country with significantly reduced access to children in rural areas and areas of low socioeconomic status. Seventy-seven percent of counties are under served and 55 percent of states have a “serious shortage” of child and adolescent psychiatry. Even when there is access to mental healthcare facilities, psychiatrists who practice exclusively in cash-only private practices now make up 40 percent of the workforce, the second highest among medical specialties. This is due to a drastic cut in funding for the publicly-funded community behavioral health centers. States have lost around $4 billion in mental health funding over the past three years so even if someone does have insurance, it’s very difficult to find the services and providers that they need. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry says in some parts of the country, there's not a child psychiatrist within a 100-mile radius. This means that even if there is a facility that takes medicaid, many children in lower SES are not able to find reliable transportation to the facility to receive mental health services. The unbalanced concentration in different regions in America has resulted in a limited workforce as well.