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Silver Linings Counseling for Healthcare Providers  

My name is Dr. Lori Crowson. I am a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) and I have a Doctorate in Behavioral Health (DBH). This degree gives me the ability to work with medical care providers (MCP) to help give their patients better access to mental health. In other words, it is a degree that integrates behavioral health with medical health.

Statistics

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According to SAMHSA (2014), between 2009 and 2013 there were more than 60% of adults in Oklahoma who had no access to mental health care.

Mental Health America (2015) wrote a report that states that among the 50 states in the United States, Oklahoma ranks 49th with the prevalence of mental illness and lowest rates of access to mental health care for adults.

News station KFOR suggests that one in five people struggles with mental illness and that there is not enough access to help those that are suffering (KFOR).

As I am sure you are fully aware, we have an incredible shortage of mental health providers in our state. This is unacceptable to me. I may not be able to fix this by myself, but as a DBH, I am able to put a much bigger dent in the disparity than I could as a typical LPC. With my training, I am able to impact the population 10 times more than other mental health providers can. The reason for this is because I have been trained in psychopharmacology, pathophysiology, brief therapy and population health management. Though I am unable to prescribe medication, I have the ability to collaborate with medical care providers (MCP’s) to find the right medications for the shared patient.

I am trained to work side by side with a physician in an integrated manor and am capable of speaking their language so that they can know and understand that I am very effective in helping them with their most difficult patients. As a result, their patients become more compliant and therefore successful, thereby most always kept out of the hospital. I am able to practice brief therapy in an evidence based manor and can see the majority of patients in 6 to 8 visits which can take the average LPC, or LMFT 20 to 30 visits depending on the diagnosis. As a result, that 60% mentioned earlier is reduced exponentially since the patient did not have to go outside the office to seek the care. *

If you would like to have more information on how I can set these programs up in your clinic, please contact me by one of these avenues listed below:

Dr. Lori Crowson

Phone: (405) 625-4380

Email: Dr.Crowson@silverliningscounseling.net

It is my ultimate desire to help the population of Edmond, and surrounding areas, have better access to mental health care.

With 1 in 5 people struggling with mental illness, I believe that by offering MCP’s the benefit of collaborating with me as a Behavioral Health Provider (BHP), this number can be substantially lowered. Too often, behavioral health matters either go unnoticed, because providers do not always know what to look for, or they do not have a partnership with a BHP.

I want to develop partnerships with them and show them that my job is to back them up and help each one to have the most effective practice because of this partnership. I want to help by giving MCP’s the ability to have a sort of “hallway hand off” with a patient that they feel needs more help that they can give in a 15-minute appointment.

You’ve just diagnosed John with diabetes.

  • 65% 65%

65% of all people who receive this diagnosis are also depressed

  • DBH has this conversation with John to make him aware signs
  • DBH would also have a conversation with John if he becomes noncompliant with his program to try and find out reasons why

I have had extensive training in population health management and therefore able to work with many different types of diagnoses such as, diabetes, ADHD, chronic pain, and hypothyroidism just to name a few.

My passion is to work with people who have chronic pain. My wish is to help them to significantly reduce the amount of pain medications they are on because it is too easy to get addicted to them. Oklahoma has a number one spot that is not anything to boast about. According to NewsOk, when looking at the statistic in regards to accidental death, there are approximately 2 deaths per day that are the result of drug overdose. Not even vehicular accidents claim this many lives! They go on to state that 4 out of 5 people overdose on prescribed medication in thousands of households in Oklahoma. As a result of these statistics, Oklahoma has earned the number 1 spot in the whole United States in prescription painkiller abuse.

It is because of these numbers, that I designed a clinical pathway that involves setting up therapy groups for people who have chronic pain. These groups not only include chronic pain sufferers, but family members and/or primary caregivers will be asked to participate as well. In addition to this, in some groups, I want to narrow the focus down even more and wish to include chronic pain sufferers who also have Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry (2004) found that patients with BPD were more likely to have a history of  “syndrome-like” conditions such as fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue.

I believe that by facilitating evidence-based care and implementing it into my clinical pathway, I can take these complex medical and behavioral maladies and help to make this population to be more productive citizens in their communities and in their families as well. Additionally, I believe that by joint venturing with MCP’s, we can reach a wider area of these demographics. This will kill the preverbal two birds with one stone by helping chronic pain sufferers decrease pain medication consumption and decrease medical utilization for chronic pain sufferers who have BPD as well.

References

http://kfor.com/2015/02/17/oklahoma-mental-health-commissioner-a-horrible-way-to-handle-health-care/

http://newsok.com/state-of-addiction-oklahoma-ranked-no.-1-state-in-prescription-painkiller-abuse/article/3656694

The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry [2004, 65(12): 1660-1665] The association between borderline personality disorder and chronic medical illnesses, poor health-related lifestyle choices, and costly forms of health care utilization.