The following is shared from The Oregonian:
Oregon’s mental health and addiction system is short thousands of workers, and state leaders say a major reason isn’t a lack of people willing to do the work — it’s a system that makes it unnecessarily hard for them to get started and stay in the field. A draft bill aims to change that by cutting paperwork, speeding up credentialing and easing licensing bottlenecks that behavioral health leaders said Wednesday are driving burnout and keeping qualified providers from seeing patients.
The proposal, still in a conceptual stage, is based on recommendations from a task force created by Gov. Tina Kotek to take a hard look at why Oregon doesn’t have enough counselors, therapists, addiction specialists and psychiatrists, and what the state can realistically do to address the shortage.
The workforce shortage has had real consequences, according to a report by Kotek’s Behavioral Health Talent Council. Since the pandemic, waitlists for mental health and addiction treatment have stretched for months across much of Oregon.
State officials and behavioral health leaders outlined the proposal during a hearing before the Oregon House Interim Committee on Behavioral Health, describing it as a practical, cost-neutral effort to fix broken systems rather than overhaul care standards.
KC LeDell, the governor’s senior behavioral health policy adviser, told lawmakers that Oregon has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into expanding mental health and addiction treatment in recent years. But he said none of that matters if there aren’t enough providers to staff them. “Building the beds is only half of the equation,” he said. “The true heart of our behavioral health system is people.” The state has roughly 17,000 behavioral health workers, according to its latest workforce report. Last year, the Higher Education Coordinating Commission found that 88% of Oregon counties lack even one mental health provider per 1,000 residents, while Oregonians report the fourth-highest rate of mental illness in the nation.