Researchers Take Closer Look at Virtual Mental Health Care Boom

September 8

Now that the COVID-19 public health emergency has ended, the health care system — including insurers — are grappling with how to proceed in the “new normal” amid shifted habits and utilization patterns. To that end, two new studies offer insights into the implications of patients’ growing use of telehealth for mental health care services.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has caused massive amounts of changes in health care delivery, but then also in terms of how individuals are dealing with the pandemic. There’s been extensive research about how anxiety has increased or [how] other mental health disorders have increased,” observes Jonathan Cantor, Ph.D., a policy researcher at RAND Corp. With that in mind, Cantor and his fellow researchers sought to build on a previous study and measure how both telehealth and in-person mental health utilization and spending has changed from 2019 to 2022.

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Health Plan Weekly

Leslie Small

Leslie has been working in journalism since 2009 and reporting on the health care industry since 2014. She has covered the many ups and downs of the Affordable Care Act exchanges, the failed health insurer mega-mergers, and hundreds of other storylines spanning subjects such as Medicaid managed care, Medicare Advantage, employer-sponsored insurance, and prescription drug coverage. As the managing editor of Health Plan Weekly and Radar on Drug Benefits, she writes and edits for both publications while overseeing a small team of reporters who also focus on the managed care sector. Before joining AIS Health, she was a senior editor for the e-newsletter Fierce Health Payer, and she started her career as a copy editor at multiple local newspapers. She graduated with a dual degree in journalism and political science from Penn State University.