For millions of people who are covered by Medicaid, mental health services were already challenging to access before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Now those resources have become even more limited.
Across the board, the past year and a half of the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted people’s mental health, creating a great need for support during a difficult, fraught time.
Dovetailing with this great overarching demand for mental health support comes the bleak reality that some of the most vulnerable in our society might not always have the greatest access to mental health services to begin with.
In June, the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) revealed that during this same period when our mental health needs increased, Medicaid enrollment exponentially rose. The foundation reported Medicaid enrollment scaled from 71.3 million in February 2020, just as the pandemic started in the United States, to 80.5 million in January.
Our nation’s mental health resources are historically underfunded and strained to begin with. Add on top of that the realities of shortages in mental health care providers and barriers to accessing mental health care for many on Medicaid — especially people of color.
The system is also buckling under the weight of deficiencies in infrastructure and support for its practitioners, and then there’s the additional challenges that have been brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
What’s being done to help those covered by Medicaid access the mental health services they need and to support those who are providing that needed care?
Experts say the answers to those questions are clear: We aren’t doing nearly enough.
Here’s why.
Source: healthline