Comprehensive Psychiatric Services and Medication Management

Finding the right medication for anxiety or depression or any mental health issue can often be a difficult and stressful process. Statistically, the majority of individuals are prescribed medication for a mental health concern not by a trained psychiatrist or psychiatric nurse practitioner but by their primary care provider. By scheduling an appointment with either a psychiatrist or a nurse practitioner at Associated Behavioral Health Care (ABHC) you will be meeting with a clinician who SPECIALIZES in mental health disorders and the ability to appropriately prescribe medications if necessary to deal with the symptoms that you are currently dealing with.

Because individual responses to these drugs are so varied and unpredictable, making the right choice often takes time and patience. The information provided by ABHC's trained psychiatrists and psychiatric nurse practitioners will give you a comprehensive perspective that will allow you to make the best informed decision possible.

Studies of prescribing practices in the United States indicate that the majority (75-90 percent) of prescriptions for antidepressants and minor tranquilizers are written by non-psychiatric physicians [e.g. primary care physicians (PCP’s)]. Likewise up to 60 percent of patients with mental illness in the United States are treated in the primary care medical setting (Katon, W., 1994; Beardsley, R.S., et al. 1988). Complicating such treatment is the incredibly brief time patients are typically seen by their PCP’s. Visits with PCP’s last an average of eight minutes-hardly adequate time to take a history, make a diagnosis , prescribe treatment and offer the necessary patient education. Often, treatment is inadequate, follow-up is marginal at best and compliance rates with psychotropic medication treatment are poor (Keller, M.B., et al. 1985, Salazar, W.H.., 1996: Hirschfield, R.M.., et al., 1997; Katon, W. et al., 1992; Kerr, P., 1994; Greden, J.F., 1993)

Psychiatrist in Bellevue (425) 646-7279