There are reasons why mental health professionals are exposed to higher risk for liability and complaints. Firstly, the litigious people of United States has included the whole profession in their claims. Secondly, increased government regulations implemented when licensing the practitioners whereas the professions have no say when establishing the care standards. Thirdly, patients are becoming more distrustful of the mental health professionals making most of them not to adhere to treatment guidelines given. Therefore, if they do not recover, they turn the blame to mental health practitioners. Fourthly, the managed care has come up with new restrictions on the number of sessions which has significantly increased the liability of the providers. Lastly, many patients are abandoning treatment due to a high cost of health care (Niles). This has reduced revenues. This leads to more errors as practitioners are forced to develop new practices to lower patient costs.
The main issue with this landmark publication are that the guide turns some of the most common human health conditions into mental illnesses. The guide has had a significant impact on the “pop a pill” making it much worse. Reason being that, if a minor case is going to be considered as a major illness by the guidelines, many will opt getting medication from a chemist to seeking medical attention due to fear. For instance, in the guide, grief after losing a loved one is often taken as major depression. Challenges have been made on the handbook to ensure that it is corrected.
Some mental health issues common in the elderly are dementia and depression. To start with, dementia is as a result of memory decline, the decrease in thinking levels, deterioration of behavior as well as decrease in ability to undertake daily activities. Depression is another mental disorder affecting the old. Older individuals have depression have a poor functioning increasing poor health perception.
Works cited
Niles, Nancy J. Basics of The U.S. Health Care System. Print.
