Pediatric Mental Healthcare Patients’ Telehealth Use Remains Well Above Pre-Pandemic Levels

As of August 2022, rates of telehealth-based mental healthcare service use by pediatric patients with commercial insurance had increased by 2300% over pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels, according to new research from RAND Corporation, Stanford University, and Castlight Health.

Findings were published in a research letter on Oct. 3 in JAMA Network Open.

Researchers reviewed data from about 1.9 million claims for children and youths provided by Castlight Health. Claims were divided into the following 3 periods:

• Pre-pandemic (Jan. 1, 2019 to March 12, 2020);
• Acute pandemic before vaccine availability (March 13, 2020, to December 17, 2020); and
• Post-acute pandemic (December 18, 2020, to August 31, 2022).

Compared to the pre-pandemic period, in-person pediatric mental health services declined by 42% in the pandemic’s acute phase and pediatric telehealth-based mental health services increased by 3027%. Although in-person services returned to 75% of pre-pandemic levels by August 2022, telehealth usage was still 2300% higher than pre-pandemic. Meanwhile, the increase in spending rates for mental healthcare (26.1%) outpaced the increase in mental healthcare utilization rate (21.7%).

“Our findings indicate that pediatric telehealth care for mental health needs filled a critical deficit in the immediate period following the emergence of COVID-19 and continues to account for a substantial proportion of pediatric mental health service utilization and spending,” the researchers wrote. “Supported by evidence that telehealth can effectively deliver mental health treatment for children and youths, these findings have important implications for telehealth sustainability beyond the effects of COVID-19.”

The researchers noted 2 key limitations with their findings. First, the data studied represented only pediatric patients with commercial insurance, and did not account for other patient populations, including Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) recipients and children without insurance. Second, data did not distinguish between new and existing patients, so the study could not pinpoint whether increases resulted from newly diagnosed patients or a utilization increase among existing patients.

Reference

Kalmin MM, Cantor JH, Bravata DM, Ho P-C, Whaley C, McBain RK. Utilization and spending on mental health services among children and youths with commercial insurance. JAMA Network Open. 2023;6(10). doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.36979