Mental Health
Primary care
In addition to high utilization, reimbursement disparity between high mental health coverage (no reimbursement, or 50 percent co-pay) and lower general health care coverage (20 percent co-pay) lead many older adults to rely heavily on primary care providers for their mental health care needs. Few physicians, however, have the specific geriatric training that often is needed to recognize older adults' unique developmental, physical, social, and psychological needs.
Many health care professionals, as well as patients and families, wrongly attribute abnormal behavior to old age rather than treatable diseases.
Specific diagnoses or treatment regimens are further complicated because many older adults have mental disorders that exist simultaneously with other chronic diseases. Thus, older people's mental disorders often go undiagnosed and untreated.
Updated: November 2, 2007
