Mental Health Care Is the Most Common Use Of Telehealth In Wyoming

CHEYENNE - Mental Health is the medical specialty seeing the greatest use of telehealth in Wyoming. So says an informal survey of most of the Cowboy State’s Insurance providers.

During the fall of 2023, the Wyoming Telehealth Consortium (WTC) reviewed data from the state’s health insurance payers seeking to understand which telehealth use by medical specialties. While telehealth usage data is limited, an initial review revealed about 50% of visits across all insurance providers was related to mental and behavioral health visits.

Dr. Paul Johnson, Chairman of the Wyoming Telehealth Consortium stated, “we know that telehealth is an increasingly important modality of healthcare delivery in Wyoming. However, the limited data on usage was previously limited to government payors like Medicaid and Medicare. We appreciate our partners in the commercial insurance industry collaborating on this project to get a more comprehensive snapshot of telehealth utilization in the state. These data might inform stakeholders in continuing efforts to address healthcare access limitations in Wyoming.”

Data for the review was provided by Mountain Health Co-op, United Healthcare, The Wyoming State Insurance Group Plan through Cigna, Mountain Pacific Quality Health, and Wyoming Medicaid.

• Wyoming’s State Employee Group Insurance Plan through Cigna covers 35,600 lives with nearly 4,761 members taking part in a total of 19,551 telehealth exams in 2022. Nearly 10,000 (51%) of those visits were for behavioral health. Other telehealth services include: ear, nose, and throat visits (12%); general medical (11%); and neurological (10%).

• United Healthcare’s 2022 numbers saw nearly 58% of their virtual care visits dedicated to mental health and substance abuse. The highest utilization came in the demographics of age 20-29, and 30-39. The lowest instance of telehealth usage for mental health and substance abuse came in the age 60+ category.

• Mountain Health Co-op’s numbers showed 963 of its total 2,201 (43%) telehealth visits were dedicated to mental health and substance abuse with 82% of those visits facilitated by licensed clinical social workers.

• Wyoming Medicaid is a fee-for-service program administered by the Division of Healthcare Financing within the Wyoming Department of Health and is the largest insurance provider in Wyoming. Exactly half of Medicaid’s 24,656 billed visits for telehealth were for Behavioral Health.
  
  In 2022, Medicaid enrollment in Wyoming was 86,574. These included 43,701 children and 4,709 pregnant people. Wyoming has not expanded its Medicaid eligible population. Like other health plans across the country, Wyoming Medicaid saw its telehealth usage balloon during the COVID pandemic. The highest usage was 72,654 visits in 2021 and 43,409 visits in 2022. Wyoming allows for all outpatient visits to provide telehealth services.
• In 2023, Medicare was billed for over 12,500 telehealth claims on behalf of 3,053 Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries. The largest category of claims was for behavioral health services, which accounted for 26% of all Medicare telehealth claims in Wyoming. Among Wyoming's fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries receiving behavioral health services, more than 1,100 (37%) sought care from providers outside the state.

The Wyoming Telehealth Consortium exists to enhance collaboration and alignment between organizations, key stakeholders, and consumers to promote telehealth initiatives to improve equity in and access to health services in Wyoming. Among the members of the consortium include representatives from the Wyoming Department of Health, Wyoming Medical Society, Wyoming Hospital Association, AARP Wyoming, Insurance Providers, Telehealth Champions, University of Wyoming, and others. Learn more about the Wyoming Telehealth Consortium at https://wyomingtelehealth.org/consortium/.

Among the work of the Wyoming Telehealth Consortium is distributing HIPAA-compliant Zoom video conferencing licenses to providers and facilities interested in implementing or who have already implemented telehealth. According to the consortium, there are currently 1,792 enrolled users who attended 105,471 telehealth meetings with the top specialties being mental health/counseling and psychiatry.

The consortium encourages Wyoming patients to ask your provider whether your visits would be right as a telehealth visit.