Challenges and opportunities for Oklahoma’s psychologist workforce

Psychologists' unique skillset and training make them a crucial part of the state's behavioral health workforce. But critical shortages of these professionals create barriers for Oklahomans who need treatment and assessments for complex behavioral health issues. Among Oklahoma’s non-prescribing behavioral health clinicians, psychologists have the greatest gap between supply and demand, meeting only 37% of the state’s estimated need.

Without investments in the pipeline of future psychologists, Oklahoma will continue to struggle meeting its residents’ mental health needs into the next decade.
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Key takeaways

• To meet growing demand for mental health services and increase the psychologist workforce, Oklahoma education institutions should expand training opportunities for future psychologists by adding internship and postdoctoral fellowship programs.
• To allow psychologists to focus on more complex cases, health systems can employ other professionals to work under psychologists, expanding access to care.
• Oklahoma has the infrastructure to offer financial incentives to attract and retain psychologists, but these programs have gone unfunded.
• Policymakers can make Oklahoma a more enticing place to practice through changes to alleviate administrative burdens that hinder psychologists’ work, such as: removing an annual Medicaid cap for psychological testing, advocating to allow interns and fellows to bill Medicare and commercial payers, and activating reimbursement codes that compensate psychologists.
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