Billings Clinic granted independent accreditation for Psychiatry Residency Program

Billings, MT The need for mental health professionals in rural and underserved areas throughout the U.S. continues to grow, highlighted by an ongoing shortage of psychiatrists across the nation.

Today, Billings Clinic is proud to announce that its Psychiatry Residency the first and only residency in Montana dedicated to training new psychiatrists has been granted accreditation by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). The ACGME is an independent national organization that sets and monitors voluntary professional educational standards essential in preparing physicians to deliver safe, high-quality medical care.

“We are excited and honored to achieve this accreditation from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education,” Jared Bozeman, M.D., Billings Clinic Psychiatry Residency Program Director, said. “It speaks to the quality of our planning team as well as the dedication from our psychiatry faculty and leadership. With the ever-growing need for those working in the psychiatry field we look forward to training the next generation of psychiatrists right here in Montana.”

The Billings Clinic psychiatry residency program is the culmination of a statewide effort that began in 2014 when the Montana Healthcare Foundation awarded Billings Clinic a $50,000 planning grant for a feasibility study. Billings Clinic partnered with the University of Washington to bring psychiatry residents to Montana for the final two years of their residency training after spending the first two in Washington. Billings Clinic welcomed the first class of psychiatry residents to Billings in 2021. Those residents are now at the end of their two years at Billings Clinic and will graduate June 16, 2023.

With the independent accreditation, Billings Clinic will now independently manage the residency, ultimately with 12 psychiatry residents training in Billings across all four years of the program. All residents will be training in Billings beginning in 2025 and, once fully implemented, it will be renamed as the Montana Psychiatry Residency at Billings Clinic.

The partnership with the University of Washington enabled Billings Clinic to learn from one of the top psychiatry residencies in the country while establishing a training program.

“The University of Washington has been instrumental in assisting us in establishing and growing this program to what it is today, and we are grateful for their help and support through the accreditation process,” said Virginia Mohl, M.D., Designated Institutional Official (DIO) and Medical Director of Education at Billings Clinic.

For decades, three states – Montana, Wyoming and Alaska – have consistently reported suicide rates that are, or are among, the highest in the country. Until 2018, they were also the only states without residency programs to train psychiatrists. Rural areas in Montana and throughout the region face a mental health crisis due to high suicide rates, isolation and a lack of mental health care resources and providers. Montana ranks 45th among all states in terms of access to psychiatrists and is projected to be 80 psychiatrists short of the state's population needs by 2030.

In Montana, including Billings, the continued need for trained mental health professionals has resulted in challenges in meeting the needs of patients, as the only dedicated inpatient psychiatric facility in Billings and the surrounding area. At Billings Clinic, this has contributed to:

• Additional strain and more psychiatric patient encounters which can require additional resources for staff in areas such as the Emergency Department, where most mental health patients first arrive at Billings Clinic.
• Enhanced national recruiting efforts to bring trained psychiatrists to Montana due to intense national competition for their services.
• The temporary suspension of operations of the psychiatric stabilization unit (PSU) in order to redirect staff to care for patients with the most acute and urgent needs. This has, among other things, allowed Billings Clinic to see more patients in the inpatient psychiatric center and embed staff in the Emergency Department for psychiatric evaluations. The PSU is a unique unit that provides short-term care and resources for patients with mental health needs who do not need an inpatient stay. Billings Clinic anticipates resuming operations in the PSU this summer.
• Increased use of telehealth psychiatric services which provide 24/7 psychiatric consults virtually to adult patients during inpatient hospital stays and allow Billings Clinic staff to continue focusing on patients in the Emergency Department, Behavioral Health Clinic and Inpatient Psychiatric Center.
• A loss of roughly $8 million on psychiatric services since July 1, 2022, due in part to the high costs of temporary staff needed to bolster Billings Clinic staff.

Billings Clinic continues to see record numbers of patients seeking mental health care, including an increase of roughly 20% in total patient volumes, since 2018. This includes an annual average of more than 22,700 patient encounters across all mental health services.

As the only hospital in the region providing a combination of an inpatient psychiatric center and outpatient behavioral health services, Billings Clinic remains committed to supporting and growing psychiatric services to help serve patients in need of mental health services throughout the region. The residency program is just one demonstration of this commitment.

The independent residency program at Billings Clinic seeks psychiatry residents who have connections to the Mountain West and are committed to serving patients in rural and underserved communities. National data indicates that physicians are more likely to practice near where they complete their residency, and training psychiatrists in Montana may assist some of them in choosing to practice in the region and serve rural areas.

The physicians in the residency are hand-picked and have a strong desire to serve in rural areas. They train to become change agents in the rural communities they serve by uncovering and nurturing their passions, learning and teaching evidence-based clinical skills and inspiring innovative approaches to closing gaps in community-based systems of mental health care.

The psychiatry residency also supports a clinical learning environment for the entire team involved in psychiatric care, including nurses, pharmacists, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and others. Through this program and accreditation, all psychiatry team members participate in advancing their skills to provide much needed care to patients.

“Building the clinical learning environment to support a psychiatry program in Montana enables all team members to grow in their understanding of best practices in mental health and while enhancing our ability to support our patients in this critical area,” said Dr. Mohl.

The residency was made possible with the support of a $3 million grant awarded by The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust as well as other philanthropic support coordinated by the Billings Clinic Foundation, which raised an additional $2.8 million for this project.

“We are deeply grateful to our donors for their support of mental health services throughout Montana through the psychiatric residency program and for their continued support of Billings Clinic,” said Eileen McDonald, Billings Clinic Foundation Chair and Chair of the 2019 Billings Clinic Classic which raised funds to support the Psychiatry Residency Program.

For more information on opportunities to be involved in philanthropy, including the support of psychiatric services, at Billings Clinic please visit: https://www.billingsclinic.com/foundation.

About ACGME

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) is an independent, 501(c)(3), not-for-profit organization that sets and monitors voluntary professional educational standards essential in preparing physicians to deliver safe, high-quality medical care to all Americans. Graduate medical education (GME) refers to the period of education in a particular specialty (residency) or subspecialty (fellowship) following medical school; the ACGME oversees the accreditation of residency and fellowship programs in the US. For more information on Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) please visit: https://www.acgme.org/

About Billings Clinic

Billings Clinic is Montana’s largest independent health system, serving Montana, Wyoming and the western Dakotas. A not-for-profit organization led by a physician CEO, Billings Clinic is governed by a board of community members, nurses and physicians. At its core, Billings Clinic is a physician-led, integrated multispecialty group practice with a 336-bed hospital and a Level II trauma center. Billings Clinic is the largest trauma center and the first established and longest standing ACS-COT continually accredited trauma center in the state of Montana. Billings Clinic has more than 4,500 employees, including nearly 600 physicians and advanced practitioners offering more than 80 specialties. Billings Clinic is the first Magnet-designated health care organization in Montana and a member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network. More information can be found at www.billingsclinic.com.