Researchers Find Inaccurate Mental Health Provider Directories
Fewer than a quarter of calls to listed mental health providers resulted in scheduled appointments. This inaccuracy hampers patients' access to care.
Original reporting · fiercehealthcare.com
Original: “Commercial plans' mental health provider directories routinely inaccurate, secret shopper study finds”
Read “Commercial plans' mental health provider directories routinely inaccurate, secret…” at Fierce Healthcare →
How this was written. Diagnosis Forward wrote this article with a language model from Fierce Healthcare’s reporting (model: @cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast); it describes that reporting rather than adding to it. The original, linked above, is the full story.
Key points from Fierce Healthcare’s report
- Fewer than a quarter of calls to listed mental health providers resulted in scheduled appointments.
- Inaccurate provider directories and capacity constraints hindered appointment scheduling.
- The study involved over 5,800 calls to listed psychiatrists and psychologists.
Fierce Healthcare reported that a study found commercial plans' mental health provider directories to be routinely inaccurate. The study involved over 5,800 calls to listed psychiatrists and psychologists.
The study found that only 23.6% of calls that reached a human answerer resulted in a scheduled appointment. This rose to 31.1% when the caller was willing to book with another available clinician.
The study's findings highlight the struggle of accessing mental health care in the US, even for those with private insurance.
Questions and answers
What was the purpose of the secret shopper study?
The study aimed to understand the scope of 'ghost networks' that hamper patients' access to care.
What was the appointment success rate in the study?
The appointment success rate was 23.6%, rising to 31.1% when the caller was willing to book with another available clinician.
