Award Date

12-1-2021

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Communication Studies

First Committee Member

Tara McManus

Second Committee Member

Natalie Pennington

Third Committee Member

Rebecca Rice

Fourth Committee Member

Katherine Marcal

Number of Pages

104

Abstract

Medicaid is the largest publicly funded health insurance program which influences the mental health practitioners’ treatment of low income individuals (Altman & Frist, 2015; Rowland et al., 2003). To understand how Medicaid influences mental health practitioners, this study utilizes institutional theory by using the five propositions from Lammers and Barbour (2006) to analyze how Medicaid’s communicative practices influence mental health practitioners who treat those who are in poverty. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 mental healthcare practitioners who accepted Medicaid: two psychologists, five social workers, one psychiatrist, and two psychiatric nurse practitioners. The results demonstrate how mental health practitioners respond to Medicaid’s communicative practices by deviating their behavior within Medicaid’s rules. Issues regarding adjusting paperwork, calling and begging with Medicaid offices, constraining behavior during treatment, changing amount of clients, dealing with payment issues, combating transportation issues, and not accepting Medicaid became prevalent when addressing treatment for mental illness. The theoretical implications suggest Medicaid is not achieving its institutional goals, and institutional beliefs are not always sustaining the institution. The practical implication suggests Medicaid mental health practitioners are doing more work compared to non-Medicaid mental health practitioners, which can lead to mental health practitioners not accepting Medicaid.

Keywords

institutional theory; interviews; Medicaid; Mental health; Mental illness; practitioners

Disciplines

Communication

File Format

pdf

File Size

1149 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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Communication Commons

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