Am J Psychiatry 1982; 139:1015-1021
Copyright © 1982 by American Psychiatric Association
A modest proposal for consultation/liaison psychiatry in the 1980s
RE Hales and PJ Fink
The authors discuss how consultation/liaison psychiatry has promoted closer
cooperation between primary care and psychiatry in the general hospital
setting and has increased physician concern for psychosocial issues while
at the same time creating financial and organizational problems for
consultation/liaison programs. To remedy these difficulties, the authors
propose that all general hospitals that have more than 350 beds have fully
staffed consultation/liaison services and that these services be funded
through third-party reimbursement formulas as an integral hospital-based
service. They outline six potential benefits of their proposal and suggest
that action must be taken now if consultation/liaison psychiatry is not to
suffer the same fate as the community mental health center movement.
