Cagande and her team at CHOP are currently working with Girard College, a preparatory school in the Sharswood neighborhood, to provide clinical services to students in grades 1 through 12. Similar partnerships with other local schools are in the works.
“But I think primary care physicians are really key to help destigmatize and also address access to care when there’s such a shortage of child psychiatrists,” said Cagande.
Still, Cagande said those stark numbers won’t materially change until institutions incentivize more medical students to take on the additional requirements (and often tuition costs) needed to treat kids with mental and behavioral health disorders.
While other medical specialties have similar barriers to entry, Cagande said psychiatry faces other challenges. Because mental health was traditionally put on the back burner for patients and doctors alike, Cagande said many medical students aren’t as drawn to psychiatry at first.
It doesn’t help that it remains harder to get reimbursed for mental health care costs.
“Sometimes we’re not reimbursed as equally as the inequity of reimbursements with other physical health billings. There’s the [Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act] that was passed since 2008, but it hasn’t really been implemented well. So that kind of discourages some people from going into child psychiatry because of that.”