Abstract
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) mandates that health insurance plans include sufficient access to behavioral health providers, but lacks specific guidelines to define sufficient access. Using a secret shopper methodology, we called behavioral health providers in the Denver metropolitan area networked with 3 large insurance companies. We found that, depending on insurance company and level of training, 9.8% to 59% of providers could offer a new patient appointment, with psychiatry appointments being particularly difficult to schedule. These findings are consistent with similar studies conducted in other regions, suggesting that access to outpatient behavioral health care is limited despite existing ACA regulations.
Footnotes
Conflicts of interest: authors report none.
Previous presentations: Poster presented at the Shared Networks of Colorado Ambulatory Practices and Partners Conference; September 25–26, 2015; Colorado; and the Collaborative Family Healthcare Association National Conference; October 15–17, 2015; Portland, Oregon.
Funding support: Funding for this study was provided by the Department of Family Medicine, University of Colorado School of Medicine.
- Received for publication November 1, 2016.
- Revision received January 30, 2017.
- Accepted for publication February 19, 2017.
- © 2017 Annals of Family Medicine, Inc.