Behavioral Health Workforce Shortage in the U.S.

Almost half of all Americans have or will in the future have a behavioral health issue within their lifetime. Either poor self esteem from social media or stress from work environments, behavioral health issues affect millions of people. Behavioral health care deals with multiple types of interventions and strategies that are provided by many different companies, small and large and early all these providers are in short supply of trained professionals.

The limited amount of trained professionals in the behavioral health space and increasing demand for them is creating a problem of extremely long wait times for people to get the care they need. As well as the lack of funding for public insurance programs (like Medicaid and Medicare), private insurers, and employers — including lack of coverage and low reimbursement rates make it very hard for some people to access behavioral health care at all. During COVID-19, less than 50% of the people diagnosed with mental illnesses were able to get the care they needed in a timely manner. Today this is still continuing due to the growing amount of people seeking care and the limited amount of workers entering the behavioral health care space.

The workforce shortage is creating disparities in behavioral health care:

• Many families that cannot afford to pay out of pocket for care are struggling to go on without it. The rising demand has also caused rising prices of therapy and counseling appointments and many private practices don’t accept certain insurance providers. This creates a case where nearly half of American’s have to choose between seeking behavioral health care or paying for necessary goods they need to maintain their current lifestyle. As of March 2023, 160 million Americans live in areas with mental health professional shortages, with over 8,000 more professionals are needed to enter the workforce in order to ensure a sufficient supply. Today this number has still not been met in many areas across the U.S.

• Professionals are also facing troubles of burnout when working. They seem to never get a break now. Whenever they are not with a patient they are transcribing notes or fulfilling other administrative tasks that are required of them. This lowers the quality of care provided as well as the amount of care that can be provided. About 15% of a therapists time is wasted performing administrative tasks.

• Underserved groups like non-English speakers, people of color, and other groups are also having trouble finding care accessible to them. Many behavioral health practices are not offering multi-language availability and this combined with the stigma against therapy from various culture makes it exceedingly hard for these people to get the care they need.

• Insurance providers have also been making it increasingly hard for practices to get reimbursements causing many practices to do away with insurance. This has only made access to care even worse for Americans.

  So how can we fix this?

• Addressing staffing needs with strategies that allow for appointments to always be available to new patients no matter the current demand. This means people can access the care they need whenever they need it. Also, brining in short term staff can be a great way to handle fluctuations in demand for many practices. Nevertheless, behavioral health care can be accessible to all with virtual solutions and the proper strategies.

• Collecting reimbursements can be made easier with automated billing and invoice services. Many solutions are out there, but it can be hard to find the right one for your practice. TheraHire can help you choose the best available options based on your needs.

• Telehealth solutions can broaden the range of services your behavioral health care practices can supply while automating administrative tasks at the same time. This can result on therapists spending their time properly and providing care rather than wasting time transcribing notes.

  TheraHire’s solutions and strategies are made to help all behavioral and mental health businesses with these problems. See how we can help your business today and provide better and more care to millions of Americans.