A brand new research finds in the course of the first few months of the pandemic, sufferers have been extra possible to make use of telehealth providers for behavioral well being therapy than bodily situations.
The research, printed lately by RAND Corp., exhibits that 53.6% of sufferers with a behavioral well being situation sought therapy by way of telehealth from mid-March to early Could of 2020. By comparability, 43.2% of sufferers with a persistent bodily situation used telehealth to obtain care throughout the identical interval.
To get the findings, RAND surveyed 2,052 folks from its American Life Panel, which is a gaggle of greater than 6,000 who take part in RAND’s analysis. Of these 2,052 folks, 39.3% have been being handled for a persistent medical well being situation previous to COVID and 15% for a behavioral well being situation. Total, 48% of those sufferers mentioned they sought telehealth therapy in the course of the first few months of the pandemic.
A lot of the 2,052 respondents have been white—63.9%—and 94.2% have been insured.
Utilizing telehealth largely for behavioral well being therapy correlates with the sturdy proof base displaying telehealth is efficient for behavioral well being providers.
The RAND research additionally discovered utilizing telehealth for behavioral well being was much less possible for ladies, folks over 60 and people with lower than a highschool training.
“If telehealth use goes to stay excessive, we have to guarantee fairness of entry, significantly for behavioral healthcare the place training, age and gender have been all related to ranges of use,” mentioned Dr. Shira Fischer, lead creator of the research and a doctor researcher at RAND, in an announcement.
The authors added that data from research like RAND’s must be utilized by policymakers as they consider telehealth laws post-COVID. There’s a push amongst suppliers that telehealth reimbursement be extra on par with in-person providers after the pandemic however it’s unclear how insurers will reply.