{"id":8129,"date":"2012-07-23T12:11:04","date_gmt":"2012-07-23T17:11:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=8129"},"modified":"2012-07-23T12:22:38","modified_gmt":"2012-07-23T17:22:38","slug":"six-psychiatrists-are-state-of-oklahomas-top-earners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2012\/07\/23\/six-psychiatrists-are-state-of-oklahomas-top-earners\/","title":{"rendered":"Six Psychiatrists are State of Oklahoma&#8217;s Top Earners"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_8131\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/umhealthsystem\/5367083764\/sizes\/m\/in\/photostream\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-8131\" title=\"Psychiatric\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2012\/07\/psychiatric.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2012\/07\/psychiatric.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2012\/07\/psychiatric-150x100.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">umhealthsystem \/ flickr<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">\n<\/div><p>The State of Oklahoma&#8217;s top earners in fiscal year 2012 were all psychiatrists, and all of them were employed by the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, according to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tulsaworld.com\/news\/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20120723_16_A1_Tesaep107403\">a payroll analysis<\/a> by the <em>Tulsa World<\/em>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Compensation amounts ranged between approximately $239,000 and approximately $277,000 earned by Senior Psychiatrist George Strickland, reports the paper&#8217;s Casey Smith.<\/p><\/blockquote><p>So why is psychiatry the top spot for state pay? And why is that department still constantly short on psychiatrists?<\/p><p><!--more--><\/p><p>For comparison, state legislators and the governor <a href=\"http:\/\/sunshinereview.org\/index.php\/Oklahoma_state_government_salary\">earn<\/a> $38,400 and $147,000 per year,\u00a0receptively. The <em>World<\/em>&#8216;s analysis excludes higher education positions.<\/p><p>The psychiatrists&#8217; compensation corresponds to the &#8220;specialized&#8221; care they provide, officials tell the paper, and the top earners are all all based in rural mental health centers or at the Oklahoma Forensic Center in small-town Vinita, the state&#8217;s largest inpatient\u00a0behavioral\u00a0health facility.<\/p><p>You have to pay psychiatrists more to live in rural Oklahoma, basically.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;You typically have a good aggregation of providers in Tulsa and Oklahoma City and the rest of the state is more difficult to recruit to,&#8221; the department&#8217;s deputy commissioner Steve Buck tells the paper.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The State of Oklahoma&#8217;s top earners in fiscal year 2012 were all psychiatrists, and all of them were employed by the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, according to a payroll analysis by the Tulsa World. Compensation amounts ranged between approximately $239,000 and approximately $277,000 earned by Senior Psychiatrist George Strickland, reports the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":8131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[300],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8129"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8129"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8135,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8129\/revisions\/8135"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}