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Addressing a Growing Need for Mental Health Pharmacists Approximately 1 in 5 adults experiences a mental health condition annually, and fewer than half of all patients with a psychiatric disorder receive treatment. Meanwhile, the U.S. has a severe shortage of behavioral health providers. In an article published in Psychiatry Online, Lisa Goldstone— associate professor of clinical pharmacy and president of the College of Psychiatric and Neurologic Pharmacists—and co-authors outline a solution: Board-certified psychiatric pharmacists (BCPPs) can be more extensively leveraged as a collaborative solution to the mental health and substance-use disorder crises. “As this specialty continues to grow, the involvement of BCPPs in care can be optimized to meet the common goal of expanding access, improving outcomes and minimizing costs of care,” Goldstone says. In existence for about five decades, the psychiatric pharmacist profession became a recognized pharmacy specialty in 1992. Today board-certified psychiatric pharmacists are clinically trained doctors of pharmacy with specialized training in psychiatric pharmacy and patient care. Many have completed two years of postdoctoral residency training and have subsequently achieved their board certification through rigorous examination. “BCPPs are often underutilized,” Goldstone says. “This results in lost opportunity to better address the needs of persons with psychiatric or substance use disorders and to meet these needs in a timely manner. Better expansion, education and outcomes studies illustrating the BCPP’s value could help advance the opportunity for inclusion of the pharmacist in billing models such as value-based care to pay for the services they provide.”
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