Proven Schizophrenia Treatments Keep People in School, at Work and off the Street. Why Won't Insurance Companies Cover Them?

What if, instead of telling patients with schizophrenia to prepare for a lifetime of disability, we asked them what they want and worked with them toward full recovery?

When Yvonne was walking across campus and heard someone calling her name, she stopped and looked around, but the other students flowed around her, oblivious. She continued on, then heard it again. Yvonne? Stop. Look. Nothing. She was confused, but like anyone else would, Yvonne brushed it off. She sat down in her anatomy class, in the middle of a big lecture hall, and when the professor began his lesson on the renal system, Yvonne started to feel funny, like he was talking about her body. “I was like, ‘Why is he talking about my kidneys? How dare he,’” she remembered. “I got really scared and I ran out of class.”...

Eventually, Kaiser agreed to pay for Yvonne to go to the UCSF Path Program for Early Psychosis, a two-year outpatient treatment program designed specifically for young people in the earliest stages of psychotic illness. The clinic is one of about 50 in California and 340 across the country that began operating in the mid-2000s. Right away, Yvonne knew this would be different. In her first session, Yvonne’s therapist had her set goals for what she wanted to achieve.

“No one had ever asked me what my goals for treatment were,” Yvonne said.

Read the full article on KQED.