U.S. Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher
Weill Cornell Medical College welcomed U.S. Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher on Nov. 8, when Dr. Satcher presented a special public health lecture co-sponsored by Weill Cornell's David Rogers Health Policy Colloquium and the Public Health Association of New York City.
Dr. Satcher spoke primarily about the initiatives on mental health during his tenure as Surgeon General. His Surgeon General's Report on Mental Health, issued in 1999, was the first report on mental health ever issued by the Surgeon General's office. This report was followed by a special supplement on "Mental Health: Culture, Race and Ethnicity."
One of the prinicipal issues still to be resolved in providing mental health care, Dr. Satcher emphasized, is the discriminatory lower rate of reimbursement provided for treatment of mental illness compared with the rate of reimbursement provided for "medical" disorders. Medicare, for example, typically reimburses 80 percent of the cost of treatment for medical disorders—but only 50 percent of the cost of treatment for mental disorders.
Dr. Satcher noted that the World Trade Center disaster could be expected to substantially increase the need for specialized mental health services for treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and anxiety disorders not only in the New York area but, to some degree, throughout the U.S. (According to some estimates, up to 100,000 new cases of PTSD may develop among the New York area population as a result of traumatic effects related to the disaster.)
Dr. Satcher with Dr. Oliver Fein (left), professor of clinical medicine and clinical public health, and program director of the David Rogers Health Policy Colloquium at Weill Cornell, and Dr. Victor Sidel, Distinguished University Professor of Social Medicine and Albert Einstein College of Medicine and president of the Public Health Association of New York City.