More Evidence of Mental Health Services Shifting to Telehealth

Managed Healthcare Executive: More Evidence of Mental Health Services Shifting to Telehealth

According to a Health Affairs study, people with conditions such as schizophrenia did not make the switch to telehealth as readily as people with anxiety and some other disorders. The average number of monthly encounters, in-person and via telehealth, for bipolar disorders fell by 10.6 percent in 2020 compared to the pre-pandemic years of 2016, 2017 and 2018. There was also a decline in encounters for depression (-8.2 percent) and schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders (-8.5 percent). Encounters for anxiety and fear-related disorders increased by 12.1 percent. These findings suggest that the volume of telehealth encounters dropped for certain conditions in part because of relatively lower telehealth uptake among these groups. Researchers concluded that telehealth may be uniquely suited to deliver mental health services, but caution about the need for strategies to meet the needs of people with “more serious mental health comorbidities.”