Assessing Primary Care Contributions to Behavioral Health: A Cross-sectional Study Using Medical Expenditure Panel Survey

Objectives To assess primary care contributions to behavioral health in addressing unmet mental healthcare needs due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods Secondary data analysis of 2016 to 2018 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey of non-institutionalized US adults. We performed bivariate analysis to estim...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of primary care & community health 2021, Vol.12, p.21501327211023871-21501327211023871
Main Authors: Jetty, Anuradha, Petterson, Stephen, Westfall, John M., Jabbarpour, Yalda
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anxiety
Anxiety disorders
Chronic illnesses
Complex patients
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
Cross-sectional studies
Expenditures
Health behavior
Health care access
Health care expenditures
Health services
Medical diagnosis
Medicine
Mental depression
Mental disorders
Mental health
Mental health services
Original Research
Pandemics
Patients
Physicians
Polls & surveys
Prescription drugs
Prescriptions
Primary care
Psychiatry
Sociodemographics
Visits
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Summary:Objectives To assess primary care contributions to behavioral health in addressing unmet mental healthcare needs due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods Secondary data analysis of 2016 to 2018 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey of non-institutionalized US adults. We performed bivariate analysis to estimate the number and percentage of office-based visits and prescription medications for depression and anxiety disorders, any mental illness (AMI), and severe mental illness (AMI) by physician specialty (primary care, psychiatry, and subspecialty) and medical complexity. We ran summary statistics to compare the differences in sociodemographic factors between patients with AMI by seeing a primary care physician versus those seeing a psychiatrist. Binary logistic regression models were estimated to examine the likelihood of having a primary care visit versus psychiatrist visit for a given mental illness. Results There were 394 023 office-based visits in the analysis sample. AMI patients seeing primary care physician were thrice as likely to report 1 or more chronic conditions compared to those seeing psychiatrist. Among patients with a diagnosis of depression or anxiety and AMI the proportion of primary care visits ([38% vs 32%, P 
ISSN:2150-1319
2150-1327
DOI:10.1177/21501327211023871