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Congratulations to the authors for utilizing the 2017-2018 National Survey of Healthcare Organizations and Systems (NSHOS) dataset to explore multiphysician practice difficulty in obtaining pediatric behavioral health services, including medication advice, evidence-based psychotherapy and family-based therapy.
In reviewing your study, a few questions crossed my mind. Your team found that multiphysician practices also face struggles obtaining behavioral health needs for adults. Do you think that multiphysician practices face more struggles in obtaining behavioral health needs for pediatric versus adult patients? More so, in your study, “pediatric” refers to patients aged 0-21 years. As such, this is an expansive age range. I am curious as to whether specific age ranges within the pediatric population experience more difficulties in obtaining behavioral health services? Do you feel that additional investigations are warranted to compare difficulty in obtaining behavioral health services across pediatric subgroup populations?
Increasing behavioral health awareness and treatments has received increased attention over the course of the past decade. Considering this study was drawn from2017-2018 survey data, is it possible that access to behavioral health services, for pediatric patients, has shifted over the past five years? Will NSHOS be repeated to measure assess to access to behavioral health services longitudinally?
As practicing clinicians, do you see any immediate ways to improve access to behavioral health services for pediatric patients seeking care at multiphysician practices? Do you feel that additional medical professional training in this area is warranted? What role does telemedicine play in increasing access to behavioral health services for pediatric patients? I feel this is especially important considering how the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has limited physical social interaction.