Faster diffusion of telemental health care for schizophrenia seen in state-operated versus free-standing mental health agencies
By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter
FRIDAY, Jan. 17, 2025 (HealthDay News) — For Medicaid beneficiaries with schizophrenia, delivery of mental health care through telehealth (telemental health care) diffused rapidly after onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study published online Jan. 16 in JAMA Network Open.
Sharon-Lise Normand, Ph.D., from Harvard Medical School in Boston, and colleagues conducted a retrospective cohort study using New York State Medicaid data from March 1, 2019, to Feb. 29, 2020 (prepandemic period) and from March 11, 2020, to March 31, 2021 (pandemic period) from 261 agencies serving 30,990 beneficiaries with schizophrenia with one or more mental health visits.
Of the agencies included in the study, six (2 percent) and 248 (95 percent) never adopted telemental health care and reached 10 percent cumulative telemental health care visits in a mean of 18 days, respectively. The researchers observed no association for mean agency prepandemic share of beneficiaries belonging to racial or ethnic minority groups with telemental health care diffusion. Faster diffusion was seen in state-operated versus free-standing agencies (hazard ratio, 2.44). Time to first telemental health care visit was slower in every racial and ethnic minority group relative to White beneficiaries (hazard ratios, 0.93, 0.90, and 0.95 for Asian or other, Black, and Latinx, respectively). Regardless of pandemic severity and area, beneficiaries from at least one racial or ethnic minority group were less likely than White beneficiaries to have a telemental health care visit; when pandemic severity was higher, the differences narrowed.
“States should monitor the diffusion of innovations among vulnerable populations, investigating whether adoption speed varies by race and ethnicity,” the authors write.
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