Half of psychiatrists do not take insurance

As seen in this report

We found that almost half of psychiatrists take don't take health insurance – whether it's private health insurance, Medicare (insurance for the elderly), or Medicaid (insurance for the poor).

Specifically, we found that in 2009 to 2010, only 55% of psychiatrists took private health insurance, 55% took Medicare and 43% took Medicaid. This presents a significant barrier for patients who need to see psychiatrists.

It's important to emphasize that this was a sharp contrast to every other type of doctor. For example, 94% of cardiologists took private health insurance during that same time period and 95% of general internists took Medicare. When pooled together, 88% of physicians all specialties other than psychiatry took private health insurance and 86% took Medicare. Acceptance rates for Medicaid were low overall because reimbursement rates are low. Nevertheless, psychiatrists had some of the lowest Medicaid acceptance rates of all specialties.

The results shocked us and when our study was published last year, we learned that the results also shocked the general public.

Doctors, patients and reporters corroborated our findings. I started to hear more and more stories of patients who struggled to find a psychiatrist who took their insurance.

LINK to Study in JAMA