APA Accomplishments of 1995-96...Returns on Your Investment

[Winter 1996; Vol. 23 No. 4]

• Achieved parity for mental illnesses in the Senate's Health Insurance Reform Act of 1996, in an historic Senate vote of 68-30 for the amendment. Although the amendment was removed by the House/Senate conference committee, the issue of parity is expected to resurface in the fall.
• Terminated the Department of Defense program to train psychologists to independently prescribe medications.
• Achieved a 5 percent increase in funding for psychiatric biomedical and behavioral research into mental illnesses and addictive disorders, causes, and treatments.
• Spearheaded creation of a diverse 39-member national coalition - including groups ranging from the National Right to Life Committee to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society - to lobby for private contracting for psychiatrists and other physicians under Medicare.
• Published the best-selling “DSM-IV Primary Care Version” to help primary care physicians identify mental disorders, enhance communication with psychiatrists, and to strengthen the role of psychiatry in training primary care physicians.
• Established a new Practice Research Network, soon to expand to 1,000 practitioners, which will enable APA to rapidly assess treatment efficacy and the impact on patient care of new mental health care financing and delivery arrangements, securing a $1.125 million MacArthur Foundation grant to continue the project.
• Developed two new practice guidelines on substance use and psychiatric evaluation to help members in clinical decision-making and expanded the guidelines project to include seven new topics and revision of two existing guidelines.
• Mentored young minority psychiatrists to pursue careers in psychiatric research by enabling them to attend the APA Annual Meeting and the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology through grant support from the NIMH.
• Played a visible and effective role in a successful national coalition effort to reduce television violence through introduction of a provision in the 1996 Telecommunications Act requiring TV manufacturers to install a violence-blocking “V-Chip” into new sets.
• Developed and published a Capitation Handbook to educate and guide members facing negotiations with managed care plans over capitation rates.
• Negotiated successfully with managed care companies on behalf of individual members having problems with denied claims, appeal procedures, basic contractual issues, credentialing, confidentiality challenges, and other managed care and Medicare problems identified through APA’s Managed Care Helpline.
• Helped members and District Branches cope with new “managed care” systems and organizations through a high priority initiative offering local and regional practice management seminars, a managed care newsletter tailored to the needs of the psychiatrist, and expanded consultation services.
• Convened a unique National Leadership Conference which recommended new APA initiatives in support of psychiatry in the 21st century, establishment of strategic alliances, aid to district branches, and mentoring for individual members.
• Gave members new access to APA information and services through development of a rapid-response “Answer Center."
• Launched a cyberspace electronic communications “Manhattan Project" to create a comprehensive electronic on-line communications system linking members, local societies, and headquarters and to procure a Home Page on the World Wide Web.
• Signed a cooperative agreement with the American Red Cross under which members will be trained and encouraged to work with local Red Cross agencies in providing crisis-response community services following tornadoes, hurricanes, air crashes, and other disasters.
• Cosponsored-for the 10th consecutive year-nationwide Mental Illness Awareness Week activities, including National Depression Screening Day programs in 2,040 sites, reaching 80,000 participants.
• Convened the largest international psychiatric meeting ever held-the 1996 APA Annual Meeting in New York-offering members quality continuing medical education, new research, and outstanding scientific sessions, and established the fall Institute on Psychiatric Services as APA’s second Annual Meeting.
• Premiered a series of “cutting edge” regional continuing medical education conferences on clinical issues, the first two held in San Francisco and Washington, DC.
• Helped thousands of international members and other psychiatrists, with emphasis on eastern Europe, with referrals and information about psychiatric treatment issues.
• Gave new visibility to the importance of medical ethics by distributing the “Principles of Medical Ethics with Annotations Especially Applicable to Psychiatry” to every new member.
• Convinced the Attorney General to drop a plan that would have allowed psychologists to prescribe medication in federal prisons.