A View From The Top: Six Healthcare Execs On How To Close The Nation’s Mental Health Care Gap
Behavioral health is having a moment — and rightfully so. Four in 10 adults in the U.S. reported having symptoms of anxiety or depression during our pandemic year, up from one in ten adults who reported these symptoms from January to June 2019. Pair the pent-up demand for behavioral and mental health services with the shortage of affordable, available resources, and what our country has is an incredible gap that requires action from all players to close.
For its part, the government just announced that it will be allocating $3 billion and $14.2 million in American Rescue Plan funding, through The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), to improve patient access to mental healthcare for adults and teens, respectively. This action comes on the heels of the newly-introduced Creating Opportunities Now for Necessary and Effective Care Technologies (CONNECT) for Health Act of 2021, a bill aimed at addressing the post-pandemic Medicare telehealth landscape by permanently extending some of the flexibilities afforded as part of the country’s Covid-19 public health emergency (PHE) declaration.
For their part, employers, providers and health plans remain focused on finding ways to more effectively and affordably bring behavioral health services into the fold. From rolling out new, collaborative care models, increasingly relying on virtual channels, forging novel industry partnerships, and implementing tech-driven solutions to improve care access and engagement, there is no shortage of levers to pull — and they are indeed being pulled.
