Or rather that psychologists are not who people typically see for therapy.

Anonymous wrote:Why are you looking for NPs?

People use psychiatrists (MD) for medication management, psychologists (PhD) for evaluations/diagnoses and occasionally therapy, and licensed social workers or similar for therapy.

The way you post makes you sound very antagonistic towards the medical and therapeutic establishment, and I'm not sure anything you write is credible.

As a side note, this is the second time I have seen a poster list psychologists as doing evals and diagnoses "and occasionally therapy." Just to clarify, many psychologists are primarily therapists, first and foremost. That is at least my experience, though a small number of colleagues do testing and evals as well. Please stop perpetuating the myth that psychologists are not therapists, it's silly.

Anonymous wrote:OP, avoid psych NOs like the plague. Ditto and even more so for PAs. The worst mismanagement I’ve seen has been psych NPs/paraprofessionals who overreach their ability and training. Don’t you with your kids mental health. I know there is a shortage or MD providers and it’s so hard to find one but truly, if anyone isn’t forthcoming about their direct relevant experience in the field for which you’re seeing them, look elsewhere.

I hear you and sorry it sounds like you have first hand bad experience.

I have one NP appointment Oct 10 as a backup, but I am actively looking for MDs, especially ones that I can tell have a reasonable chance of having a little common sense, competence and has acquired intuition and experience over time...things they don't teach at school. That might just be wishful thinking, but I am trying. My family may not have the luxury to recover from a bad mismatch.

A poster here gave me a good reference, and I am waiting to hear from Medstar Georgetown MDs that take insurance.

On the brighter side, I had a good conversation today with a consultation service (R3C) my employer pays for. They listened to the history and recommended Intensive Outpatient care (IOP) that sounds reasonable and less drastic than Residential treatment. It was brought up before, but lost in the haze of last few months. They will help find the provider(s). My company's benefits are way above average, and I still struggle. I am imagining quality and network size of my health insurance is also way above average in comparison, which is just outrageous and scary to think about. At any rate, I am not sure how long IOP will take to arrange. In the mean time, I have a few leads.