People with mental health problems received more healthcare visits if they went to practices that offered telehealth, a new study finds.
The researchers wanted to see if using telemedicine during the pandemic was linked to more visits for people with serious mental illness. Scientists examined data from 120,050 Medicare beneficiaries with schizophrenia or bipolar I disorder.
People who used mental health providers that utilized telehealth experienced 13% more visits compared to those who received care from practices who saw people mostly in person, the data showed.
The mental health practices were placed into three groups: Those that had the lowest, middle amount and highest proportions of telemental health visits during the first year of the pandemic. The researchers compared the use of virtual visits in 11,170 practices and outcomes from those visits before the pandemic to telehealth use during the pandemic. The researchers evaluated the number of mental health visits each person got that were in-person or virtual.
The mean age of the people studied was 56.5, and 55.5% were females. The study was published in JAMA Health Forum on Friday.
People who received care at practices with medium and high levels of telehealth use had more mental health visits. Of people aged 65 to 74, 24.2% received care at practices which had the lowest prevalence of telehealth offerings, 21.7% received care at practices with medium prevalence of telehealth services, and 24.4% received care at clinics with high prevalence of telehealth use.
Trends in mental health visits in the first year of the study weren’t different between before or after the pandemic. The proportion of mental health visits after the pandemic began was higher in the middle telemedicine and highest telemedicine use groups compared to visits before the pandemic.
During the pandemic, people who received care at practices that switched almost solely to telehealth had more outpatient mental health visits compared to people who got care at practices that largely saw people on an in-person basis. People who received mental health care at practices with the highest telemedicine use less often switched practices.
“One surprising finding was that patients receiving care from practices with the highest telemedicine use had more hospitalizations and ED visits for mental health conditions than patients of practices with the lowest telemedicine use,” the authors wrote.
“Using telemedicine to care for patients with SMI may be an effective policy for provider organizations or health plans to improve patient-clinician engagement and continuity of care, which may help these patients better manage their conditions,” the authors added.
