Medicare beneficiaries with serious mental health disorders experienced treatment interruptions in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study. Photo by Geralt/Pixabay
Jan. 28 (UPI) — People with Medicare with serious mental health disorders saw interruptions in treatment services during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, according to a study published Friday by Open JAMA Network found.
In March 2020, when the pandemic began in the United States, outpatient visits for mental health treatment services for people covered by the government-funded health care plan were down 20% compared to March 2020. 2019, the data showed.
Additionally, prescriptions for antipsychotic medications and mood stabilizers for Medicare beneficiaries with mental health disorders fell 20% in March 2020 compared to the same month a year earlier, the researchers said.
For the second half of 2020, both figures rebounded, but remained about 3% below 2019 levels, according to the researchers.
These treatment failures could have long-term health implications for this “extremely vulnerable population,” study co-author Dr. Alisa B. Busch told UPI in an email.
“These are seriously mentally ill individuals, most of them poor and most of them disabled,” said Busch, an associate professor of psychiatry and health care policy at Harvard Medical School in Boston.
The pandemic has interrupted health services around the worldparticularly for those with non-life-threatening illnesses, with hospitals overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients, according to the World Health Organization.
About 14 million adults in the United States have been diagnosed with serious mental health disorders, including depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, according to estimates from the National Institute of Mental Health.
According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, more than 65 million people nationwide receive health care coverage through Medicare, which provides benefits to people age 65 and older and people with disabilities.
Busch and his colleagues analyzed treatment use trends for nearly 690,000 Medicare beneficiaries who received care for serious mental health disorders in 2019.
With in-person care declining during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, nearly 60% of treatment services were delivered via telemedicine, phone or video calls, the researchers said.
However, Medicare beneficiaries who couldn’t afford the technology needed to use telemedicine services were more likely to experience interruptions in care, according to the researchers.
“[Care] interruptions occurred despite the strong acceptance of telemedicine, [and] pretty quickly, when the pandemic started,” Busch said.
“Without the rapid adoption of telemedicine, these disruptions would have been even more severe,” he said.
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