A method for estimating psychiatrist staffing needs in community mental health programs.

Community mental health programs are facing increasing demands to treat and rehabilitate seriously mentally ill patients even as they encounter shortages and burnout of qualified psychiatrists. The authors propose practical and flexible step-by-step guidelines to help such programs estimate current and future psychiatrist staffing needs. The method involves defining the roles of the psychiatrist, negotiating time allocations to be spent providing direct and indirect services, and determining case loads that are mutually agreeable to staff, administrators, and patients. The method can also be used by psychiatrists to negotiate a manageable working arrangement with a community mental health program.