JAMA Health Forum: Mental Health Service Utilization Rates Among Commercially Insured Adults in the US During the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic This study found that the weekly rate of in-person mental health service utilization decreased by more than 50 percent after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic but concurrent increases in [...]
Journal of Behavioral Health Services & Research: Sociodemographic Correlates of Affordable Community Behavioral Health Treatment Facility Availability in Florida: A Cross-Sectional Study This study assessed neighborhood-level sociodemographic attributes to characterize the availability of behavioral health treatment facilities in Florida. The study found that areas with greater proportion of non-Latino Black and Latino residents [...]
Community Mental Health Journal: Federally Qualified Health Centers Use of Telehealth to Deliver Integrated Behavioral Health Care During COVID-19 Federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) transitioned to deliver care via telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study reviewed how FQHCs adopted integrated behavioral health (IBH) using telehealth. Nine interviews with FQHC administrators resulted in [...]
The Commonwealth Fund: State Telemedicine Coverage Requirements Continue to Evolve As telemedicine coverage requirements evolve, some states have begun to require coverage of audio-only telephone visits, exempt behavioral health care from limits on telephone visits, and protect patients’ access to their providers. This report from the Commonwealth Fund details state legislation enacted since [...]
Kaiser Family Foundation: Access and Coverage for Mental Health Care: Findings from the 2022 KFF Women’s Health Survey A Kaiser Family Foundation brief found that women were more likely than men to report needing mental health services in the past two years, but 40 percent did not seek treatment and 10 percent were [...]
Senate Finance Committee: Mental Health Parity Discussion Draft Senate Finance Committee Chair Wyden (D-OR), Ranking Member Crapo (R-ID), and Sens. Bennet (D-CO) and Burr (R-NC) released the fifth and final legislative discussion draft as part of the Committee’s bipartisan mental health initiative. This discussion draft included policies aimed at improving mental health parity [...]
Epstein Becker Green: 2022 Telemental Health Regulations Unlock Access and Evolve Compliance Practices A 2022 report from law firm Epstein Becker Green (EBG) shows that an increase in the global prevalence of anxiety and depression is accompanied by requests for more mental health assistance, ultimately leading to states sustaining and widening regulatory flexibilities to expand [...]
Inside Telehealth: Most Midterm Voters Support Free Telehealth Pre-Deductible (11/17) – The Alliance to Fight for Healthcare conducted an election night poll, which found that an overwhelming majority of midterm voters want telehealth services to be covered before individuals meet their deductibles. Of voters who supported Democrats in the midterm elections and were polled, [...]
NEJM Catalyst: CareConnect: Adapting a Virtual Urgent Care Model to Provide Buprenorphine Transitional Care Medications for opioid use disorder (OUD) such as buprenorphine are the gold standard for treatment of OUD, but patients face many barriers accessing these medications. To address this gap, a team at Penn Medicine created CareConnect, which leveraged new [...]
JAMA Network Open: Comparison of Visit Rates Before vs After Telehealth Expansion Among Patients with Mental Health Diagnoses Treated at Federally Qualified Health Centers According to this research letter, high telehealth availability at federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) was associated with better care engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic for patients enrolled in Medicaid [...]