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Rise in Mental Telehealth Care More Than Offset In-Person Visit Decline
A massive increase in the use of telehealth-based mental healthcare services more than made up for a 50% drop in in-person visits during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a recent study from RAND Corporation.
Findings from the study, which were published in JAMA Health Forum, were based on an analysis of data for more than 5.1 million adults with private health insurance. Researchers looked at claims data from Castlight Health, a health benefit manager for employer-sponsored health insurance plans for about 200 employers in all 50 states.
Use of telehealth for common mental healthcare issues increased 16 to 20 times during the first year of the pandemic. As a result, while in-person visits continued to decline throughout 2020, treatment of some mental health disorders still increased by 10% to 20% from January to December. The findings point to “a remarkable transition in the US mental health system from in-person to virtual care,” RAND economist Christopher M. Whaley, the study’s senior author, said in a news release.
The study also delivered the following findings:
- Telehealth usage increased the most for anxiety disorders and the least for bipolar disorder.
- Combining in-person and telehealth service treatment rates, an overall increase in care was observed for: major depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, and adjustment disorders. The rate of women using services for anxiety disorders during the period observed increased more greatly than that of men.
- Although telehealth has long been touted as a viable option for underserved areas, the RAND study found those in rural areas were less likely to use telehealth-based services, possibly the result of telehealth services failing to reach remote and lower-income communities, the researchers noted.
Adults over the age of 46 also had lower telehealth usage rates than younger adults. Study lead author Ryan K. McBain, a policy researcher at RAND, theorized that while the lower usage rate among older adults could be partly due to a lower prevalence of certain mental health conditions among this population, “the consistency of this trend across different diagnosis categories suggests that factors such as lower digital literacy and less comfort with using telehealth may also play a role.”
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