Willingness to diversify leads to practice success

Success in today?s practice requires psychologists to look more closely at marketplace trends.

By Sara Martin
Monitor staff

The changes managed-care has wrought on psychology practice have left some psychology students questioning whether they can succeed in practice?and even whether they?ve picked the right career.

But at the APA 1998 Annual Convention session 'Your future?will the marketplace support your services in the 21st century?' APA Executive Director for Practice Russ Newman, PhD, JD, assuaged those fears. Psychology?s future practitioners will succeed if they learn how to apply their diverse training and professional skills in the health-care delivery system.

'I hear the fears that our training has become irrelevant because of marketplace changes, that we somehow need to revamp what we do, or that we ought to focus on just short-term treatment because that?s all that managed care is able to provide,' he said. 'I don?t think any of that is the way to go.'

Instead, said Newman, psychologists? training simply needs some fine-tuning to better integrate the profession?s diverse facets. Psychologists should also become well versed in the 'business of health care,' he said, and look at ways they can diversify their practices.

Understanding the market

The keys to psychologists? success lie in understanding the demands of today?s health-care market. Over the past 30 years the market has evolved into a consolidated, integrated system that values diverse services. In response to these changes, health-care purchasers?primarily employers and the government?are no longer satisfied with having many contracts with many different providers for the various services their employees need. Instead, said Newman, they want 'one-stop shopping' that allows them to contract with one entity for all services.

Psychologists who diversify their practices are well positioned to succeed in this one-stop-shopping marketplace, Newman said. 'It doesn?t mean that you, yourself, have to be trained to provide a broad array of services,' he said. 'What it means is that you can group with other psychologists who provide other types of services.'

To be more attractive to employers and maximize the benefits of their professional training, said Newman, psychologists can form group practices with other psychologists who have expertise in the profession?s many fields, from pediatrics, child psychology and family therapy to neuropsychology, rehabilitation and forensics.

To diversify even further, psychologists can partner with primary-care providers, which today?s market favors over specialists. Whether it?s accurate or not, Newman said, mental health services have been historically viewed as specialty care. 'And if the market emphasizes primary prevention and comprehensive services as the first stop, and you?re specializing in mental health service practice, you?re at a disadvantage.'

As a result, psychologists need to become more involved in primary health-care activities. As an example, Newman cited work psychologists are doing as part of the Breast Cancer Demonstration Project, which APA is sponsoring, with Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Inc., and the Linda Pollin Institute Research Program of Harvard Medical School. The project is looking at the psychological, behavioral, immunological and health outcomes of women who participate in a 16-week group therapy program compared with outcomes of women who receive standard care.

Training and business issues

The psychology field also has to fine-tune some of its training, Newman said. 'Although the discipline has been diverse, we?ve managed to segregate the way we train psychologists,' he said.

For example, often there are artificial barriers between the training of clinical psychologists and industrial organizational psychologists, even though the fields overlap, he said.

'If you think about it, if you train those two groups of diverse psychologists together, it would give us an advantage because employers need the services that I/O psychologists provide, need the services that clinical services provide,' he said. 'If we brought them together, we?d be better able to market our services to employers who buy our services. It doesn?t mean we have to revamp the way psychologists are trained; it does mean that we need to reorganize the way the pieces are put together.'

Succeeding in today?s health-care market also requires psychologists to become better versed in the business of health care, said Newman.

'You need to be able to talk the language of health care and to know how to make decisions that will have an impact and influence on the business and marketplace of health care,' he said.

Where do psychologists get that information? In the session?s question-and-answer period, Henry Engleka, assistant executive director for marketing in APA?s Practice Directorate, pointed members to the directorate?s web site (www.apa.org/practice), which offers a wealth of information for practicing psychologists. Resources include tip sheets on 'Diversifying Your Sources of Practice Income,' 'What to Include in a Managed-Care Proposal' and 'Using Business Consulting to Your Advantage.' APA also publishes a series of practice-related books, including the 'APA Practitioner?s Toolbox Series.'

For more information on these resources, call (202) 336-5800.