Action on that bill has not been taken. Arnet said there are 260 licensed and active psychiatrists in New Mexico. Also, he said, more than 190 of them accept Medicaid patients, including in the border areas of El Paso and Lubbock, Texas. Under the Sandoval bill, training requirements for psychologists to write prescriptions would include two years' supervision by a physician and at least 450 hours of such subjects as neuroscience and pharmacology. But Arnet said the proposed training requirements would be inadequate.
Psychiatrists are medical doctors with several years of training in human biology and treatments.