Mental health care

Mental health care

Introduction

Mental health care plays a significant role in society as it seeks to engage people and the challenges they face in view of constructing stronger communities. Twenty percent of the US population suffers from mental illnesses and if not dealt with substantially, the situation can get worse. The criticality of this issue is that mental illnesses relate to our professionals, families, education, and our general social lives. Research provides that one out of four people is likely to suffer mentally at some point in life. The complexity of our current societies leads to at least every person having to deal with depression once or more times in life. The advances in mental health care and needs possess a lot of challenges and issues for organizations and practitioners in this field. This paper seeks to cover contemporary topics, themes, and challenges that confront practitioners in this field, information on how to improve service to clients and a research focus topic.

Contemporary topics and themes

Mental health care has for a long time suffered from insufficient support and numerous problems that impact service delivery. As organizations and mental health practitioners, our main aim is to change the manner mental health is perceived and improve service delivery to our clients. The feeling of non-inclusion has existed from time immemorial and the main idea currently is to address the broad framework of contemporary topics and issues that would adversely impact us as individuals and the collective peak of organizations (Prasad, Satyanand, 2016). Some of the emergent topics discovered throughout the research include mental health parity, service integration, deinstitutionalization, the Affordable Care Act, and managed care. These issues emerge and continue to evolve with the expanding advocacy for better government and other stakeholders’ involvement in mental health.

Mental health parity involves the call for equality in the treatment of mental health illnesses and substance abuse complications’ insurance coverage to that of general medical care. Mental health insurance was covered differently from other medical care. Higher cost-sharing structure, more limits and restrictions, different annual and lifetime coverage, and difficult prior requirements compared to general medical care. These insurance requirements impact adversely the operations of practitioners particularly ensuring patients receive needed medication and patients in paying for their treatment (Goodell, 2015). Service integration entails bringing together mental health care and primary health care. Primary medical care involves offering essential health services to individuals in the community and it is situated as close as possible to households. Primary care is decentralized and comprehensively requires the active participation of the community. Integrating the two modules of care would make diagnosis and treatment of mental health disorders easier since primary health providers would be able to apply psychological and behavioral expertise in their work and communicate closely to mental health practitioners concerning related health problems.

Additional themes include historical deinstitutionalization which entails hospitalization and long-term in-patient services. Reduced deinstitutionalization results from research findings that reveal some related problem including patients losing social skills and abilities, the ability for self-care and the development of introvert behaviors. These issues make coping more difficult once the patients are de-hospitalized (Harnois, Gabriel & World Health Organization, 2000). The Affordable Care Act was formulated to reduce health insurance costs by the inclusion of premium tax credits and reduction of cost-sharing. Concerns for quality care unveil higher insurance costs as the major problem affecting patients’ ability to receive maximum medical care. Organization of services and managed care work complementarily to offer health services to clients at a reduced cost. Managed-care plans is another example of health insurance that involves contracts with medical facilities and organizations. Managed care works by restricting patient choices and reducing plan flexibility hence lowering insurance coverage cost. Managed care is evolving and is desirable for facilitating improved practitioners’ mental health service delivery.

Contemporary challenges that confront practitioners in this field

Statistically, about one adult out of twenty-five suffers from serious mental illness that impacts their normal functioning and the quality of life. The role of mental health care practitioners and the module at large should occupy a prominent position in human services and health care systems. The poor inclusivity of the mental health care module makes the work of practitioners very difficult and the patient needs to tolerate insubstantial treatments. Professionals in mental health face several challenges today which include; lack of support, lack of minimum standards, dealing with policy changes, advocating integrated care, ensuring patients receive needed medications and engineering cultural competence.

Mental health professions suffer from insufficient support from relevant stakeholders in terms of funding, personal issues, career advancements or stigma. These practitioners deal with a variety of mental conditions that affect human lives and without enough support, they end up suffering from some of these mental conditions. Research from an article from ‘Psychology Today’ reveals that psychiatrists, psychologists, and counselors end up suffering from depression and substance abuse after long periods of their careers. These conditions hence deteriorate relationships such as families and friendships. The cry for service integration is for these professionals to spread treatment and care over other facilities and personnel in the course reducing the burden. The government is working hard to provide sufficient funding but some parts of the countries especially rural areas are still lacking mental health resources.

Ensuring quality treatment has proved a challenge due to the lack of minimum standards that dictate if medication is safe and effective. Patients with mental disorders most of the time pass through different facilities including juvenile systems that provide mental disorders treatment. These structures lack coordination and communication to offer the best care possible. Patient data is inconsistent when coordination is poor and practitioners find it difficult to provide needed care. Practitioners also face the problem of fostering cultural competence considering the US is a cosmopolitan country and some illnesses connect to individuals’ backgrounds. With emerging themes and changing needs, new policies are being formulated at federal, state, and local levels, therefore professionals need to keep updated to remain elegant in work.

Information to improve service to the client or advancing the understanding of practitioners

Mental health care lack process measures that assess the quality of services offered to patients. Improving patient outcomes would require all stakeholders’ inclusion and awareness that mental conditions contribute to thirty percent of annual disabilities. Primary care has undergone tremendous growth as compared to mental medical care. All parties need to incorporate process measures to reduce inconsistent patient data that impact the quality treatment. Systems to measure and report quality of care need to be existent and active on a routine basis. There need to be accountability mechanisms inclusive of public reporting, penalties, and rewards. Responsible players need to enhance coordination and communication among structures to ensure personnel works together to achieve desired outcomes (Kilbourne, Beck, Spaeth‐Rublee, Ramanuj, O’Brien, Tomoyasu & Pincus, 2018). As mental conditions continue to grow in prevalence countrywide, education and training of professionals and co-workers should seek to concentrate on the quality of service and contemporary issues and contributors to these illnesses.

Research focus

Mental health policies and their impact on the quality of service

The topic of interest and research focus would be based on existing mental health policies and how they affect service delivery. In the past few years, the federal, state, and local authorities have formulated various policies to cope with the changing trends and needs in this field. The research would align with the efficiency and effectiveness of these policies, how they impact practitioners’ work, the infrastructure needed to increase personnel competence and understanding of the underlying policies, and how the professionals and the general public can work hand in hand in implementing these policies for maximum patient outcomes.

Conclusion

As the mental health module continues to advance in relevance, lots of things are changing due to the ever-growing advocacy for better mental health infrastructure. We cannot ignore the fact that mental conditions are affecting our quality of life and relevant parties need to react to the themes of mental health parity, integration, managed care and deinstitutionalization with much-needed seriousness. When these issues are handled carefully, then we are looking into better understanding and service delivery from practitioners for improved patient results. The integration of human services is a major concern and can make access to treatment easier and cheaper.