With the COVID pandemic leaving a major mental and behavioral health crisis in its wake, telehealth is being catapulted deeper into the fray with its ability to deliver this needed care at a time when America’s mental health infrastructure is weakened, or nonexistent in some areas.

Ahead of President Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday (March 1), the White House outlined a new strategy to confront what it’s terming a “national mental health crisis.”

In a statement, the Biden Administration said it is “laying out a vision to transform how mental health is understood, perceived, accessed, treated, and integrated — in and out of health care settings. The American Rescue Plan laid the groundwork, providing critical investments to expand access to mental health services. Now, far more is needed to ensure that everyone who needs help can access care when and where they seek it.”

See also: Popular Telehealth Services Seek Cost Clarity, Payments Options to Scale

Lauding telehealth for the role it played during the worst of the pandemic in connecting patients with practitioners, that statement said, “To maintain continuity of access, the Administration will work with Congress to ensure coverage of tele-behavioral health across health plans, and support appropriate delivery of telemedicine across state lines.”

On Feb. 14, HHS announced it is awarding $55 million to 29 Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) funded health centers “to increase health care access and quality for underserved populations through virtual care such as telehealth, remote patient monitoring, digital patient tools, and health information technology platforms.”

In addition to other initiatives, the White House announcement said that later this year “HHS will create a learning collaborative with state insurance departments to identify and address state-based barriers, like telehealth limitations, to behavioral health access.”

See also: HHS Grants $55M More to Bring Telehealth Services to Underserved in the US

Telehealth Easing Anxieties

Studying this in depth, PYMNTS surveyed more than 3,500 adult U.S. consumers for The Digital Care Connection: How Telehealth And Digital Payments Can Expand Mental Healthcare Access.

In it we find that “60% of patients receiving mental health care are using telemedicine tools to consult with their specialists,” surpassing the numbers of patients using digital tools to make doctor appointments (51%), refill prescription (43%) and pay medical bills (39%).

That research notes private industry support of the government’s new emphasis on “anywhere access” to mental and behavioral counselling and treatment by expanding telehealth availability and simplifying payments for users who are under duress and seeking professional help.

For example, The Digital Care Connection study notes, “Many areas have very few mental health professionals, and patient access can be threatened as a result. As many as 65% of nonmetropolitan counties lack a single psychiatrist, and more than 60% of rural Americans reside in an area with a shortage of mental health providers.”

The White House plan refers to this as well, saying, “At the center of our national mental health crisis is a severe shortage of behavioral health providers. More than one-third of Americans live in designated Mental Health Professional Shortage Areas, communities that have fewer mental health providers than the minimum their level of population would need.”

With an estimated 301 million smartphone users in a nation of roughly 330 million people, and with 5G rollouts ongoing, delivering video behavioral counseling in hard to reach and underserved communities and entire rural regions is central to the new plans.

Get the study: The Digital Care Connection: How Telehealth And Digital Payments Can Expand Mental Healthcare Access

Telehealth Is Trending

There’s wide agreement that telehealth for mental and behavioral health purposes is highly effective. It is also increasingly preferred by consumers in the connected economy.

PYMNTS’ ConnectedEconomy™ Monthly Report for January 2022 found that “2.1 million more U.S. consumers accessed healthcare products and services online in December than they did just one month earlier. Also, 2.8 million fewer consumers attended in-person medical appointments in December than in November 2021.”

Additionally, 5% more consumers (7 million) “reported using sites, apps and other digital channels to access this type of information in December than in November.”

Read the report: PYMNTS’ ConnectedEconomy™ Monthly Report