Employer Resource Center

Psychiatric pharmacists are advanced practice clinical pharmacists who specialize in mental health care. With an extensive knowledge of medication management, they are skilled at treating the whole patient. They strengthen the mental health team by working directly with patients and improving treatment outcomes.

Yet, psychiatric pharmacist capabilities are not well recognized and are underutilized. The number of available employment positions is limited by several factors despite evidence that psychiatric pharmacists improve treatment outcomes. The Employer Resource Center Task Force of the American Association of Psychiatric Pharmacists was charged with generating a resource that provides guidance for individuals and organizations to use when creating employment opportunities for psychiatric pharmacists.

The available documents were curated to help support pharmacists, employers, and institutional leadership in developing new employment opportunities for psychiatric pharmacists across a variety of practice settings.

Explore the ABC's of Practice Expansion with the AAPP Practice Expansion Toolkits below.

Advocate for Change

• Facilitating Change to Develop a Practice Position in Psychiatric Pharmacy
  Identify components of the change management model to ensure each is met when proposing new positions or expansion of services.
• Introducing Psychiatric Pharmacists
  The "Advocacy" section of the web site includes presentation slides, infographics, issue briefs, and many other resources to help when stakeholders are unfamiliar with psychiatric pharmacists.
• Impact on Team Well-Being
  Justify pharmacist services by the evidence that exists in reducing burnout amongst other providers.
• Contrast Expertise with Other Providers
  Evaluate the differences between a psychiatric pharmacist and other healthcare team members to support the integration of a psychiatric pharmacist on the patient care team.
• Needs Assessment
  Learn to conduct a needs assessment to identify opportunities for psychiatric pharmacist services.
• Utilizing SBAR for Service Justification
  Explore SBAR examples to help propose the development or expansions of various psychiatric pharmacist services across practice settings.

Build a Business Plan

• Job Description Templates
  View key components of job postings for psychiatric pharmacist positions.
• Billing: Fee for Service ("Incident to")
  Utilize appropriate billing codes under fee-for-service and incident-to billing models.
• Billing: Behavioral Health Integration (BHI) Model of Care
  Explore required components and potential billing opportunities for behavioral health integration care models.
• How to Integrate a Pharmacist
  Explore key steps for integrating pharmacist team members, case illustrations of what the integration can look like, and workflows show the role of pharmacists in various practice models.
• Justify a PGY2 Position
  Identify key benefits of establishing a PGY2 position to support the health system and the specialty.
• Return on Investment (ROI) Calculator
  Identify key components needed to calculate a return on investment. Explore supporting literature to estimate cost saving interventions and/or revenue generating services provided by clinical and psychiatric pharmacists.
• The Role of BCPPs in Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs)
  Explore the key characteristics that define a CCBHC, and identify how BCPPs are especially well-equipped to address several strategic goals of every CCBHC.

Cultivate Effective Practices

• Outpatient Psychiatric Pharmacist Best Practice Model
  This toolkit provides a self-evaluation to identify areas for improvement within an existing outpatient practice. Each of the 28 attributes of the model include a list of references to implementation resources.
• Benefits of Volunteering
  When health care professionals are encouraged to volunteer, the health system sees improved visibility, improved leadership training, improved job satisfaction, and many other benefits.
• What to Track: Core Outcome Set for Psychiatric Pharmacists (COS-PP)
  Utilization of a unified core outcome set will ultimately benefit the patients by providing robust evidence of the value of having psychiatric pharmacists on the team to improve access to care, quality of care, and patient satisfaction.