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: Althouse

Insurance won't pay enough for psychiatrists to do old-style talk therapy.

Which makes life as a psychiatrist less rewarding, but really, why should people buying health insurance get stuck funding psychiatry sessions? If you want your talk therapy with a psychiatrist, you have to pay the premium for this luxury out of your own funds...

Competition from psychologists and social workers ? who unlike psychiatrists do not attend medical school, so they can often afford to charge less ? is the reason that talk therapy is priced at a lower rate. There is no evidence that psychiatrists provide higher quality talk therapy than psychologists or social workers.

Of course, there are thousands of psychiatrists who still offer talk therapy to all their patients, but they care mostly for the worried wealthy who pay in cash. In New York City, for instance, a select group of psychiatrists charge $600 or more per hour to treat investment bankers, and top child psychiatrists charge $2,000 and more for initial evaluations.

And is there a problem here? You got the fancy-schmancy credential so you could charge more, and now you find that you'll need to get rich clients who can pay for your services, or you're lured into the drug-prescribing racket which doesn't amuse you that much. Face the consequences of your own decision, your own flawed effort at winning in the marketplace. Or do I need to sit you down and prompt you for an hour until you see it that way?

Full post as published by Althouse on March 06, 2011 (boomark / email).