The College of Psychiatric and Neurologic Pharmacists (CPNP) is a professional association representing nearly 3,000 psychiatric and neurologic pharmacists. CPNP’s membership consists of specialized pharmacists, many being Board Certified Psychiatric Pharmacists (BCPP), who treat patients living with psychiatric, substance use, and neurologic disorders.
Psychiatric pharmacists are an underutilized resource on the frontlines providing direct patient care, optimizing medication outcomes, and supporting fellow health care colleagues in primary care and mental health. Sufficient reimbursement continues to stand in the way of many practices seeking to include a psychiatric pharmacist on the care team. In order to expand the use of psychiatric pharmacists, federal payment polices must be changed to allow psychiatric pharmacists to directly bill for their services.
Patients with psychiatric and substance use disorders are currently confronted with a health care system which lacks behavioral health providers and is unable to meet their unique needs. These patients deserve the high-quality, evidence-based, measurement-driven, comprehensive care that psychiatric pharmacists can provide as an integral member of inter-professional teams.
People living with behavioral health conditions need timely and safe access to mental health and substance use disorder (SUD) services now more than ever and are likely to continue to need behavioral health care long after the official public health emergency declaration is over. Research shows that the COVID-19 pandemic is greatly exacerbating existing behavioral health issues and leading to substantial increases in anxiety, depression, and SUDs.(JAMA Netw Open. 2020;3(9):e2019686).
To advance the reach and practice of psychiatric pharmacists, CPNP’s federal policy priorities for 2021 are as follows:
CPNP will play an active role in legislative and regulatory advocacy to:
CPNP will actively work with key partners to advance legislative and regulatory policies to: