Mental health care equity and access: A group therapy solution.

This article will argue that inefficient supply of services is created by mental health providers being incentivized toward individual therapy. Group therapy offers a solution because it is a “triple E treatment”—efficient, effective, and equivalent to individual therapy in terms of outcomes (Burlingame & Strauss, 2021). Group interventions also address systemic racism and the needs of minorities who have been marginalized and cope with minority stress. This article will utilize a labor and financial impact analysis to demonstrate how increasing group therapy by 10% nationally, particularly in private practice and primary care integration settings, would increase treatment access for over 3.5 million people while reducing the need for 34,473 additional new therapists and simultaneously saving over $5.6 billion. It will discuss how incentivizing groups while holding therapists accountable for training, competency when working with people from diverse backgrounds, and outcomes can result in improved efficiency. This will allow therapists greater freedom to collaboratively select the most effective treatments for those from underserved and minority backgrounds and create easier access to quality treatments. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
Source: American Psychologist - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research