This is the Kato Daily Podcast for Friday, August 30th, 2024. I'm Caleb Brown.

Access to physicians, even for those with insurance, is an ongoing problem in the US and

for mental health issues the problem can be every bit as life or death as physical ailments.

Access to prescribing psychologists has advanced in a handful of states,

but it's not clear, aside from interest group politics,

what stands in the way of giving more patients that access?

Gato's Jeff Singer comments.

We can refer briefly to the problems in the U.S. health care system related to supply, which is we have a doctor

shortage, we have a well let's just say an interest group that is largely responsible for deciding how many physicians

there are operating within the United States of America. Prices for medical services are often quite high and physicians don't have a lot of

leeway in our modern insurance company, HMO, sort of the system of health care

providers to have a lot of latitude to practice in the way that they might prefer.

So you've suggested and some states have moved ahead with this prescribing psychologists to alleviate one aspect of sort of the

health care supply bottleneck that we have. How has that been going?

Well, we're starting to make a lot of progress.

Just for a little background.

We know there's a shortage of mental health care providers.

We've been reading every day about the growing number of both young and old who are developing

depression and other mental health problems and it gets harder and harder to get

into see a mental health practitioner who could prescribe medication to

facilitate the therapy and in the United States roughly roughly 50% of psychiatrists who are obviously they were able to prescribe mental health meds, roughly 50% of them take insurance.

So that if you wanted to go to see one,

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