Consumers Less Likely To Seek Virtual Behavioral Care When Paying Out-Of-Pocket

Health care consumers in high-deductible health plans are less likely to seek telemental health visits when required to pay out-of-pocket. According to the recent study, when consumers were required to pay out-of-pocket for telehealth visits, they had substantially fewer telemental health visits, and a larger fraction stopped seeing their mental health specialists.

In adjusted models, cost sharing was associated with 1.5 fewer visits per consumer. There was also an 11.7% reduction in the proportion of consumers who had any visits in the post-intervention period (22.0% relative reduction).

The findings imply that . . .