The impact of telemental health use on healthcare costs among commercially insured adults with mental health conditions.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To determine the impact of telemental health (TMH) use on total healthcare costs and mental health (MH)-related costs paid by a third party among adults with mental health conditions (MHC).

Method

This study employed a pre-post design with a non-equivalent control group. The cohort comprised adults with MHCs identified using diagnosis codes from de-identified claims data of the Optum Clinformatics DataMart (2010 January 01 to 2017 June 30). We identified mental health (MH) service users and TMH users (N = 348) based on procedure codes. Non-users (N = 238,595) were defined as those who only used in-person MH services. A Difference-in-Differences (DID) analysis was performed within a multivariable two-part model (TPM) framework to examine the impact of

SUBMITTER: Zhao X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7535072 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature