Providers needed for mental health care

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Providers needed for mental health care
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Mar 10, 2008 7:17:58 EDT

A nationwide shortage of mental health professionals is hurting — but not preventing — the military’s expansion of counseling and treatment programs for service members and their families, officials say.

Army Col. Loree Sutton, director of the Defense Center of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, said Tricare has added more than 3,000 new mental health providers to its networks in the past few months and is also trying to find non-network providers willing to take on new patients — part of a move to expand treatment options for members of the National Guard and reserve.

Sutton said the Pentagon also is working with the U.S. Public Health Service to get the services up to 200 mental health providers who can augment military counselors and doctors.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who four years ago was one of the toughest critics of military mental health services, said March 5 that she is pleased the military seems to be taking the issue seriously.

But, she said, military medical people cannot rest on their laurels.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/03/military_mentalhealth_030708w/