Mental health care across two nations - Switzerland and the United States of America

Abstract

The United States of America and Switzerland are among the world's wealthiest countries, with high health care spending per capita. This review presents an overview of the health care systems of both countries with a special focus on mental health care, including psychiatric outpatient treatment, psychiatric inpatient hospitalisation, day treatment centres, residential treatment centres and substance abuse treatment. The largest difference between the two countries is that Switzerland has mandatory universal health insurance, more regulation over the health insurance companies and negotiated costs of treatment. As the two countries are in the process of adjusting their health care policies and funding, they could benefit from each other's experiences, models and mistakes made in the past.