Racial/ethnic disparities in specialty behavioral health care treatment patterns and expenditures among commercially insured patients in managed behavioral health care plans.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To document differences among racial/ethnic/gender groups in specialty behavioral health care (BH) utilization/expenditures; examine whether these differences are driven by probability vs intensity of treatment; and identify whether differences are explained by socioeconomic status (SES).

Data source

The cohort consists of adults continuously enrolled in Optum plans with BH benefits during 2013.

Study design

We modeled each outcome using linear regressions among the entire sample stratified by race/ethnicity, language and gender. Then, we estimated logistic regressions of the probability that an enrollee had any spending/use in a given service category (service penetration) and linear regressions of spending/use among the user subpopulation (treatment intens

SUBMITTER: Narain K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6505415 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature