A new report suggests a 'workforce crisis' is affecting mental health care in Massachusetts, resulting in longer waits for outpatient treatment and fewer people getting care:
released Tuesday said the average wait time in the state for an initial mental health assessment by a licensed clinician is longer than two months. It found that more licensed clinicians are leaving positions than are being hired.
Nearly all the clinics reported increased wait times with almost 14,000 people on wait lists. The average wait for an assessment or therapy for children and youth was three weeks longer than waits for adults, according to the report. The clinics also reported serving 11% fewer people in 2021 than before the coronavirus pandemic began, despite"Access to outpatient mental health services continues to diminish," the report said.
"We are concerned that what the data is showing us is that maybe a generation of people has just done the calculus and decided that they don't want to come into this field," said Lydia Conley, president and CEO of the Association for Behavioral Healthcare.
"This pressure that is caused by ED boarding is driving the creation of new beds, and beds are absolutely needed, but what it is doing is it's redirecting this diminishing workforce to those settings," Conley said."So if we don't do something to really rethink outpatient services and invest in outpatient services, we're never going to address the root cause of boarding.
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