Answer To Madame Christine Grou, New President of the OPQ

[Français ici] 

Christine Grou, new President of the Quebec Order of Psychologists, in response to a comment on her Facebook page, claims to have "intervened" on the subject of inequitable access to psychotherapy by insurance companies. 

Here is my answer to her:

Dear Madame Grou,  

You are not being asked, as you wrote in your comment, to defend "the interest of psychotherapists" but to defend the interest of the public whose protection is, may I remind you, the mission of your professional order.

Your letter is addressed to the Ombudservice for Life and Health Insurance (OLHI), "an independent dispute resolution service to handle consumer complaints"; but what is your complaint?

You do not dispute the inaccessibility of psychotherapy through insurance programs that cover psychological services, nor clearly tell the OLHI that, in terms of psychological treatment, psychotherapists are on equal footing with psychologists, which would allow the public to be reimbursed for their services at no additional cost to anyone.

Madame Grou, you need merely state simply and publicly that:

The OPQ denounces the lack of coverage of psychotherapy by insurers and demands that, in the public interest, insurers reimburse the services of psychotherapists who have been issued a permit by the Quebec Order of Psychologists such as to allow the public access to all professionals qualified to provide the psychological treatment they are looking for.

Can you say this; if not, why not?

Sincerely,
Patricia Ivan

access to psychotherapy

Despite all the talk about "access to psychotherapy" in Quebec, nobody is willing to make a small administrative tweak, a simple change to insurance policies replacing the word "psychology" with "psychotherapy" (which is now regulated in this province), so that more psychotherapy services would- overnight- be made accessible to hundreds of thousands of Quebecers at no additional cost to anyone!

Nobody is talking about this or why it is not happening.  I suspect a conflict of interest of the Quebec Order of Psychologists which licenses both their own psychologist members AND non-psychologist psychotherapists, their competition.

There is currently a petition at the National Assembly to ask that insurance policies make the changes necessary to respect Quebecers' right to access psychotherapy provided by all licensed psychotherapists in this province.  The petition has over 1000 signatures, but nobody is talking about it.

Please talk about it!