My friend in New York who’s married, so I guess it’s part of their benefits…
Tells me , that they can basically
Call their Psychiatrist …
Uhh uhhh… I’m from Canada , that sounds wild to me …
Here, people literally have to get a referral from their family doctor to see a psychiatrist and the waiting time is 1-2 years .
Either that or we go to the ER, get admitted to the psych ward and then deal with a psychiatrist ( and even that is temporary… until you become an out-patient … and then the appointments with the psychiatrist just dwindle off ).
But the way my friend put it …. It’s like … Psychiatrists are accessible basically anytime ?!!!!?
I swear … this friend better know the difference between a psychiatrist and psychologist … because wtf…. This is hard to fathom for me.
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Yeah. If there’s an issue with your medications, they have to be available. You call a messaging service, leave a message, and the doctor on call calls you back.
As always, when it comes to health care in the US, it really depends on an individual’s insurance. My insurance, mental health care is self referral. As long as I pick a psychiatrist that’s in-network, it’s covered. I got my daughter an appointment in about 2 months, it only took so long because not all psychiatrists see children and the ones that d are busy. Now that she’s an established patient, if something comes up I can get a message to the doc and an answer within 24 hours.
If you are an existing patient of a psychiatrist, yes you can just give them a ring. If you need to find a psychiatrist, it can be much dicier.
If your insurance covers psychiatry you can call and make an appointment as long as the psychiatrist has schedule availability. There can be a wait of a month or two if their calendar is booked. Sometimes they aren’t taking new patients and you look for another one.
One of my kids has a psychiatrist, but all he does is prescribe meds. My kid calls the office, schedules a virtual appointment with the guy, they “meet” over the phone, and the meds are renewed.
I can’t CALL mine but I can send her a message through my patient portal and she typically responds within an hour or so if it’s during business hours. I’ve never had an issue getting in contact with her when I need to.
Depends. I have no insurance, so I can’t afford one.
It’s not that easy to GET a psychiatrist. I don’t have one now, so unless I had a psychiatric emergency and were in the ER, it could take me months to get a hold of one.
But if I had a psychiatrist, they would have an emergency number I could call and someone in their practice would probably be available to talk to fairly quickly.