Looking to the VA for a roadmap on how to sustain tele-mental health care.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic led to a rapid increase in tele-mental health care availability in the United States. Although this change has the potential to help alleviate unmet need for mental health care in underserved areas, there are system and policy challenges to sustain tele-mental health models beyond the pandemic. The United States Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) has long been a national leader in offering tele-mental health care. Using data from the National Mental Health Services Survey from 2010 to 2020, this brief report describes growth in tele-mental health care in VA and non-VA mental health facilities over a decade. The study used a sample of approximately 12,000 VA and non-VA mental health facilities in the United States and examined the availability of tele-mental health among facilities. Tele-mental health offerings increased dramatically in 2020, growing from 12% to 35% of facilities across 2010-2019 and then to 69% of facilities in 2020. Nearly, 90% of VA facilities offered tele-mental health during the same time period, and this percentage increased to 98% in 2020. Adapting tele-mental health innovations in the VA for other underserved populations and building a national infrastructure for tele-mental health may promote ongoing use of virtual care models to meet mental health care access challenges. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).