P2.295: The Teletherapy advantage

Background: Mental health needs are increasing in youth, with one in every four children having some sort of mental, emotional, developmental, or behavioral problem. Unfortunately, more than 50% of children that have these needs had difficulty getting services, and this is even worse in marginalized populations and in certain geographic locations. Lack of insurance or coverage for mental health care is an issue, especially for children with Medicaid. Language and geographic barriers are significant problems as well.
Teletherapy has been shown to be an effective way to provide this therapy to children, decreasing many of these barriers to mental health care, as well as treating the behaviors where they occur. Some studies have even shown a decrease in the cost of services with telehealth and increased client satisfaction. Many meta-analyses have demonstrated equal effectiveness in treatment with telemedicine as compared to in person therapy for several common mental health conditions.
Shortly after the COVID pandemic, an online childhood mental health and child therapy service was founded to offer more families access to the behavioral and mental health care they needed to thrive. It began in Colorado, but soon expanded as they saw the positive impact that they were having in a way that was easy for families to access. The expert therapists provide comprehensive, culturally sensitive, effective, family-centered therapies in a way that is accessible and engaging using dynamic video-based telemedicine.

Methods: Data has been collected through the electronic medical record, as well as surveys and validated measurements completed by therapists, parents and patients

Results: The therapists served over 3000 patients and provided over 30,000 video teletherapy visits in 2024. Services include counseling, testing, applied behavioral analysis (ABA), speech and occupational therapies, art therapy, as well as case management for over 80 behavioral and developmental conditions. The majority of patients, approximately 80%, have Medicaid. Currently, services are being provided in four states, though expanding. 95% of patients are children aged 1 through 21 years, though family and adult therapy are also provided. 90% of patients showed positive progress after engaging in treatment. Measurement based outcomes showed 67% improvement after 3 months of engagement in evidence-based mental health therapy. Patient-completed GAD-7 and PHQ-9 scores decreased over 8 weeks, as shown in graphic 1. 98% of patients that took part in ABA treatment saw a reduction in maladaptive behaviors at discharge as compared to baseline. In the past 6 months, parent/patient satisfaction has been rated at 4.84/5.

Conclusion: This online mental health provider has been effective in providing teletherapy for children in a way that is consistent with patient/ parent satisfaction and positive outcome measures. This is a model that can be expanded fairly easily to cover the much-needed gap for mental health services.