NEUROPSYCHIATRY IN GROUP PRACTICE

Abstract

As a result of complex socio-economic pressures a new pattern of medical practice is emerging which promises to alter the entire scene, especially that of psychiatry. One facet of this pattern is the trend toward the organization of specialists into a collaborative clinical group, thus making available to their collective clientele expert medical and surgical care. This development of the medical group movement is in part a consequence of the increasing need and public demand for specialist care. In addition, physicians recognize the efficiency, economy, and professional advantages inherent in group practice. In an attempt to mitigate the rising and often prohibitive cost of specialist care, the health insurance principle has evolved, giving further impetus to the formation of increasing numbers of medical groups that offer a prepaid medical care program to their clientele. And now with the very real possibility of some form of national health insurance, the prospect of unprecedented acceleration to the group practice movement is seen. Psychiatrists would be included in these clinic groups, giving psychiatry a manifestly invaluable vantage point. But would the other consequences of statefinanced psychiatry outweigh this benefit? Since American psychiatrists have had no experience with psychiatry under a statesubsidized plan and since the Ewing plan has not specifically defined the role of psychiatry in the National Health Program, we can only inf#{231}r from whatever knowledge and experience we can collectively pool what the future might offer in this changing universe of medical practice, and then make some f ormal representation to the authors of S-1679, the National Health Bill. It can be categorically stated that the practice of medicine in this changing order must reflect the general economic flux, and that