Over a Third of Patients Continue to Use Telehealth for Mental Healthcare

Kaiser Family Foundation researchers found that following the increase in telehealth use during the COVID-19 pandemic, patients with mental health and substance use disorders used these services at a high rate, and they continue to do so, despite the more recent decline in virtual care.

The report used data from Cosmos, a data set containing more than 126 million patients from 156 organizations that use Epic systems. With this data, researchers found that telehealth continues to play a vital role in outpatient behavioral healthcare a year and a half into the COVID-19 pandemic, though overall telehealth usage has dropped.

Before the pandemic, less than 1 percent of outpatient care occurred through telehealth. This percentage then rose to 40 in 2020. In 2021, only 5 percent of other outpatient care visits took place through telehealth, yet usage remained relatively high for mental health and substance use disorders at 36 percent.

Researchers also found that when analyzing telehealth outpatient visits between 2019 and 2021, the portion of these types of visits that related to a mental health or substance use diagnosis increased each year, going from 11 percent in 2019 to 39 percent in 2021.

Telehealth use for mental healthcare varied by location. Rural residents were 20 percent more likely to use telehealth for mental health and substance use disorder treatment than urban residents, according to the report.

Not only that, but non-elderly patients were also more likely to use telehealth compared to older patients. Researchers found that 62 percent of telehealth-enabled mental health or substance use visits occurred among patients aged 19 to 64 years.

Similar data from FAIR Health’s Monthly Telehealth Regional Tracker showed that despite the general decline in telehealth use in October 2021, treatment for mental health conditions remained at the top of the usage list.

Due to the mental health treatment opportunities provided by the increased use of telehealth, some states have been working to remove barriers that limit its use.

For example, in March, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed a bill that provides Medicaid reimbursement for mental health services performed through telehealth. The bill, known as SB 41 Mental Health Access Amendments, states that all "medically necessary" telehealth services can be covered by a health plan if the service is also covered in person.

A similar situation occurred in Louisiana in 2020, when a bill that expanded telehealth services to include behavioral healthcare was enacted into law. The law was enacted to alleviate the strain on mental healthcare services during the COVID-19 pandemic and to offer providers a virtual care option for treating depressed or anxious patients.