Studies have shown that the pandemic has increased the prevalence of mental health issues and the demand for behavioral health services. Telehealth services have also been expanded to help deal with the increased demand. To continue to improve workforce capacity and ensure that the current workforce is utilized appropriately, more research needs to be done to understand current mental health needs.

This brief describes a study that analyzed claims data to compare current and pre-pandemic mental health service usage and examined telehealth usage during the pandemic to better understand its impact on the behavioral health workforce.