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Who is the new CEO of APA? What are some examples of AI in psychiatry? How did COVID affect mental health? Why is access to mental health care important?
Marketa Wills, MD, MBA, the CEO and medical director of the American Psychiatric Association joins to discuss the importance of breaking the stigma of mental, self-care in medicine and shares AI in psychiatry examples. AMA Chief Experience Officer Todd Unger hosts.
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Speaker
- Marketa Wills, MD, MBA, CEO and medical director, American Psychiatric Association
Transcript
Unger: Hello and welcome to the AMA Update video and podcast. Today we're talking with the new CEO and medical director of the American Psychiatric Association, Dr. Marketa Wills in Washington, DC. We'll discuss her work at the APA and what she sees for the future of the profession.
I'm Todd Unger, AMA's chief experience officer in Chicago. Dr. wills, welcome and congratulations on your new role.
Dr. Wills: Thank you so much, Todd.
Unger: You officially took the reins of the APA on June 1. First up, how's everything been going so far? And what have you been focused on in your first few months?
Dr. Wills: Well, thank you for the question. It has been exciting and inspiring, Todd. It has been so awesome to meet with so many members of the American Psychiatric Association, and to really hear about the challenges they're facing in their practice for their patients and also their hopes for the future for our field.
A definite highlight for me of the past few weeks was going to the AMA's June meeting of the House of Delegates, representing psychiatry along with the rest of our delegation and meeting with other leaders in the AMA. It's such a privilege to have the issues that are core to the American Psychiatric Association be amplified across the house of medicine, a really special part of these last few weeks for me.
Unger: Absolutely. Before this position, you served in a variety of leadership roles, including at health plans and in medical education. And I'm curious what unique perspective do you feel that you've been able to bring with that experience to your leadership role at the APA.
Dr. Wills: My career has spanned many places throughout the health care ecosystem, from the provider side, to the payer side, to the consulting side. And I think that wide lens and experience allows me to truly understand our health care system from several different vantage points and really understand the context in which our members operate every day.
That, of course, comes with constraints and with opportunities that are available within the current realities of the marketplace. I've also practiced as a psychiatrist myself, and that doctor's perspective on the system as well is really important, especially for mental health, where we're constantly faced with all kinds of issues such as low reimbursement rates, tedious prior authorization requirements, et cetera. So having been in so many different parts of the mental health care ecosystem better positions me to understand where we as an association can realistically make the most gains and where we can push to advance the issues that matter most to my physicians.
Unger: You talked about two of those really big issues that we're focused on here at the AMA, of course, reimbursement and prior auth among them. Another big focus, of course, is the changing landscape of technology, which is affecting so many different specialties.
In the announcement about your new role, you talked about the growth of AI and how it will impact the world of psychiatry. Tell us more about how you see AI technology impacting this area of medicine the most in the coming years.
Dr. Wills: Very excited about the technology and innovation landscape and the impact it will have on the field of psychiatry. That being said, I do believe that we must proceed with cautious optimism because there are some things that things like technology and I simply can't do. Artificial intelligence or augmented intelligence is not a substitute for the human connection that occurs between a doctor and a patient. And that therapeutic alliance is especially important in the role of mental health.
So there are lots of opportunities for AI to make changes and advancements in clinical practice, changes in reporting. And I'm excited to see those all play out. But we do need to research it more and understand how it can work for us. And it's going to be critically important for us as physicians to have a leadership role in the development of AI.
Unger: Absolutely. Outside of technology, what do you think are the big changes on the horizon that might impact the profession right now?
Dr. Wills: Lots of changes out there right now. Here are just a few. First and foremost, we were very excited about the government national initiative of 988 making it easier to access mental health resources should there be a mental health crisis. We are also very encouraged by the slight increase that we've seen in graduate medical education slots specifically for psychiatry.
But we need more, Todd. We definitely need more, and we'll also need more for funding for research in our field as well. But it is important that the government recognizes how essential it is to support mental health care. And I'm thrilled by some of these changes.
There's also some demographic shifts happening. And the face of psychiatry is changing. It's becoming younger. It's becoming more ethnically, culturally and geographically diverse. And we need to continue on with training efforts so that we can support our patient base, which is ever diversifying as well.
Unger: Now, you mentioned the word crisis in your previous comments. Let's talk about the pandemic and the crisis of mental health that came about because of that. You said that the pandemic made people more aware of their mental health and started to reduce the stigma around your profession.
And I'd love you to comment. Tell us more about that, how you see people's perceptions about mental health changing.
Dr. Wills: Yes. As we all remember, the pandemic was a very, very tumultuous and scary time for not only our nation but the globe. However, if there was one silver lining about the pandemic that I might identify, it was the fact that it became so much more palpable to folks how important their mental health was.
And I think we saw just an explosion of mental health resources and conversations that were happening throughout our country like they had never happened before. And so I do think that there was a destigmatisation of both mental illness as well as substance use disorders. Every day people, athletes, celebrities, even government officials are more and more willing to talk about their issues and more receptive to the idea of receiving treatment for them as well.
And I think something else that's really important is that people more than ever are recognizing how inextricably bound physical health is to mental health. We still have work to do, but I do think a lot happened positively for our profession during the pandemic.
Unger: And along those lines of this issue around stigma and mental health, one of the things that we've talked a lot about over the past few years is in relation to physicians themselves, where there has been a stigma and sometimes regulatory and privacy issues surrounding seeking the kind help that they need and just really being afraid to do that. In your view, has the culture in medicine shifted? And what personally has kept you from getting burned out?
Dr. Wills: We have shifted somewhat. But Todd, I do believe we still have a ways to go. Burnout is extremely common for our physicians across all disciplines in medicine and especially in medical school. And so we as physicians need to make sure that we're taking care of ourselves as we work so hard to heal our patients.
Personally, for me, I lean into meditation and yoga and exercise as well as spending time with friends and family and gardening as ways to take care of my own mental health. And I encourage at every turn physicians who I come into contact with to make sure that they're taking time out for their own mental health as well.
Unger: Now, one final question that brings together a number of the threads that we discussed over the course of this conversation, I think it's pretty well known that we have seen just this huge increase in the number of people that are struggling with mental health issues, owing to a variety of reasons. And with that growth, access to care has been a real challenge. In your view, what is the solution?
Dr. Wills: Ah, that's the million dollar question, Todd. There's no one silver bullet for increasing access to care. Many things need to happen in sequence, and I'll name a few.
One that I really know that the American Psychiatric Association is advocating for is that the flexibilities that began for telehealth privileges during the pandemic and continue today, those are important for widening access to care, particularly for those who live in rural areas or for those who have clinical conditions that make coming out of the house difficult to seek mental health treatment.
We also believe that collaboration is a key to progress, between medical societies, between physicians and patients and between organizations, like the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association, as well as collaboration with the federal government. A few years back, the American Medical Association, along with the American Psychiatric Association and other primary care specialties, formed that Behavioral Health Integration Collaborative.
And there's a wealth of information about integration for physicians to learn more on the AMA website. Collaborative care model is one that's especially important. In that model, psychiatrists work with primary care physicians and see panels of their patients and provide that consultation. And we think that's an important way to widen access to psychiatrists.
We also think that insurers must abide by laws, such as the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, to ensure that patients receive just as much from their benefit for mental health services as they do for physical health services. And we do believe that lawmakers must address systemic and regulatory issues that block access as well.
Unger: Those are all great points. And Dr. Wills, thank you so much for joining us today. Congratulations, again, on your new role, and we look forward to talking with you again in the future. And I'll look forward to meeting you in person at the Interim Meeting coming up in November.
If you found this discussion valuable, you can support more programming like this by becoming an AMA member at ama-assn.org/join. That wraps up today's episode, and we'll be back soon with another AMA Update.
Be sure to subscribe for new episodes and find all our videos and podcasts at ama-assn.org/podcasts. Thanks for joining us today. Please take care.
Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed in this video are those of the participants and/or do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the AMA.
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