The psychiatric nurse practitioner, also know as a mental health nurse practitioner, is trained to offer a wide range of psychiatric therapy in a variety of health care environments and the psychiatric nurse practitioner salary tends to consistently land in the top three for areas of advanced nursing specialization. In this article, we’ll take a brief look at the details of the psychiatric nurse practitioner salary and career as well as expected trends for this field over the coming years.
Role of the Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner
As mentioned, the psychiatric nurse practitioner, commonly referred to as a PMHNP, is trained to offer care to patients with a variety of mental health conditions, psychiatric disorders, and often substance abuse and dependency issues. The PMHNP role is critical in a host of health care settings including hospitals and community health clinics, private psychiatric practices, emergency care facilities, and also outpatient mental health care clinics.
Generally, the PMHNP is certified and licensed to provide assessments of patients, both physical and psychosocial, offer necessary emergency psychiatric care, formulate necessary treatment plans, and assist in the management of both long-term and short-term patient care. Due to their extensive training in the unique specialization of advanced psychiatric are, the PMHNP also often provides education and awareness of disorders and treatment options to other health care industry providers, staff, and family members of affected patients.
While the PMHNP does very often work in a collaborative health care setting such as a hospital or clinic, the profession is unique in that currently there are 20 states which allow the PMHNP to own and manage a private practice. This fact obviously skews the average psychiatric nurse practitioner salary upward somewhat as salary levels for practice owners tends to be well above the median.
Training for the Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner
As with other areas of specialization within the advanced nursing field, the aspiring PMHNP must attend a master’s or doctorate level nursing program which offers training and education in psychiatric nursing. Currently, there are three notable programs within the United States, including Columbia University, University of California at San Francisco, and the Yale University School of Nursing. Upon successful completion of the prescribed program requirements, the candidate will sit for board certification as a PMHNP-BC, which designates the candidate as a board certified psychiatric nurse practitioner.
Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner Salary and Career Outlook
According to Payscale.com, the current national salary data for the psychiatric nurse practitioner indicates that the salary range for this specialization trends from $61,998 to $102,382. In many cases, the PMHNP supplements their base nurse practitioner salary by offering counseling within private practices in their area.
As with other areas of specialization in advanced nursing, the employment opportunities for the PMHNP are expected to outpace other health care related fields through the year 2018. The availability of openings is also expected to span all health care settings, including private and community hospitals, private practices, and outpatient care facilities.
If you are interested in a challenging opportunity within the mental health services field and a rewarding compensation package which is among the highest nurse practitioner salary ranges, you may want to consider the field of psychiatric nursing.