OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma has serious shortages in nearly all types of behavioral health providers, according to a recently released report.
The report, by the Healthy Minds Policy Initiative, was recently unveiled during an interim study before the Oklahoma House of Representatives’ Public Health Committee.
The Healthy Minds Policy Initiative, with offices in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, is a nonprofit that works to end untreated mental illness through policy and practice transformation, said Zack Stoycoff, executive director.
The study provided a poignant look at the gap between the size of the state’s mental health workforce and the need by Oklahomans, in particular for psychologists and psychiatrists, said Rep. Melissa Provenzano, D-Tulsa.
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The report says Oklahoma’s psychiatrists are meeting only 39% of the state’s estimated need. Psychologists are meeting 37%.
Oklahoma has 23 psychiatry residency positions. It has 19 accredited psychology internship positions.
“The limited number of university internships and residency opportunities in Oklahoma means our future doctors must overwhelmingly move out of state to complete their training,” Provenzano said. “When they go, they tend not to return. It’s time for Oklahoma to grow our capacity and retain these doctors here at home.”
Degree programs supporting behavioral health careers graduate more students than ever but not enough to meet the state’s growing need for treatment services, according to the report.
Stoycoff said behavioral health includes mental health and substance abuse issues.
Oklahoma has an abundance of licensed professional counselors but comes up short in licensed marriage and family therapists, psychologists and clinical social workers, according to the report.
The state also comes up short in psychiatrists, advanced practice registered nurses and nurse practitioners providing psychiatric or mental health services.
“Primary care providers, of which Oklahoma has far more than psychiatrists, can also be part of solving the behavioral health prescriber shortage,” the report said. “While many patients with mild or moderate behavioral health conditions receive medication management through a primary care provider, only half of the diagnosable mental health and substance abuse conditions are detected in primary care, and only half of those whose condition is detected receive treatment.”
The organization offered a 14-point plan that includes $30 million worth of strategic incentives the Legislature could implement to change the trajectory of behavioral health pipelines, Stoycoff said.
Jim Zahniser, Health Minds Policy Initiative director of population health analysis, said too many youths experiencing mental health crises have ended up at emergency departments in hospitals.
Rates of suicide and overdose deaths have gone up, accelerated further by the pandemic, Zahniser said.
He said a lot of people know someone who has been suicidal or overdosed.
“It is often because they are not getting detected,” he said. “There are not enough professionals out there to meet the need.”
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