Mental Health, Virtual Care
USofCare’s Advice on Virtual Care for Behavioral Health
Today, United States of Care submitted comments in response to the Senate Finance Committee’s Request for Information on Behavioral Health Care Challenges.
United States of Care has brought together partners from across the health care system to understand how to use virtual care to remove barriers to care, address inequities in access, and make health care more convenient. USofCare has conducted over two years of research to understand people’s experiences with the health care system. Costs and affordability concerns consistently emerge as the top issue.
In our conversations, we’ve also heard people frequently articulate the importance of access to mental and behavioral health care for themselves, their families, and their communities. These concerns have become especially urgent in the wake of the pandemic. Virtual care is one strategy to help people — especially those who have been historically marginalized by the health care system— access the care they need.
In pursuit of our mission to put people at the center of health care, in the spring and summer of 2021, United States of Care researched how virtual care tools, including telehealth, could best be used to address behavioral health care access. This research informed our response to the RFI on opportunities to advance access to behavioral health care services through telehealth.