Insight Matters
Winter 2006

Candidate for President-Elect
By: Todd Ivan, M.D.

Position Statement

I’ll begin where I left off two years ago in my candidate’s statement for OPA secretary: our best advocacy voice remains the APA and the OPA. No one listens to “good old Doc Soames” on important issues, but when the profession of psychiatry speaks as one the public listens. Over the past summer our profession responded to an actor’s irresponsible claim about psychiatry and in the end he looked as foolish as his claim. Our collective action makes such a response possible.

The environment in which we practice today has not arisen in a vacuum. Legislation passed by Congress in the late 1980’s has enabled the managed care industry and the federal government to disproportionately limit reimbursement for mental health care. Additionally, the Institutions for Mental Diseases Exclusion Rule, which draws its precedent from laws passed in the days of President Chester Arthur, has been renewed repeatedly despite opposition from organizations like NAMI and the APA. Changing this legislative environment here in Ohio will require resources that OPA has just begun to develop. One resource that currently exists but urgently needs all of our help is the OPA political action committee, OPPAC. Most members don’t realize that OPA funds cannot be used for lobbying efforts due to state and federal laws. If the Reform Ohio Now Initiative had passed OPA Council could have voted to divert some dues to a “small donor” political action committee. Without such a change we are left asking for voluntary contributions, which usually total less that $12,000 each year. If every member of the OPA becomes a $100 contributor to OPPAC as I’ve done, we will have a six-figure war chest to change the legislative landscape here in Ohio .

I grew up in Youngstown , and attended college, medical school and residency training in Cleveland . I have worked for a community mental health center, a psychiatric emergency service, a residency program and have a busy private practice. I am a member of my local alcohol, drug, and mental health board. I have served in various components of the APA and OPA since I was a resident, including the APA committee on the Practice of Psychotherapy as a Burroughs-Wellcome Fellow. I am familiar with all the facets of psychiatric care and can advocate for the types of change our profession needs.

In the next few years psychiatry will be tested, by further claims that our medicines are poisons, by further attempts to economically limit the care we provide, and by further efforts to allow psychologist prescriptive authority. Every one of us will be called upon to respond. With legislators, with our patients, and with the general public we will educate and hopefully shape public opinion about mental health care. As a candidate for OPA president, I ask for your vote of confidence in leading the response of Ohio ’s psychiatrists to the challenges that arise.

Biographical Material

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