Access Uncertain Under ACA’s Medicaid Expansion

Dr. Miller said the general shortage of psychiatrists in many areas of the country and the unwillingness or inability of others to take on Medicaid patients will all combine to create major workforce issues when the Medicaid rolls increase in 2014. It could end up changing the role of the psychiatrist, he said. One possibility is that psychiatrists may begin to take on more of a consultant role, offering advice on patients seen within a primary care group and only directly seeing those more complex patients, said Dr. Miller, who chairs the APA’s Assembly Committee on Public and Community Psychiatry. Physician extenders also might be able to help with the workforce shortage, he said, by performing some of the tasks that physicians don’t need to do themselves.