It has been a year like no other and that’s particularly true for the telemental health and telepsychiatry industries.

Unfortunately, mental health need has spiked during COVID-19, which has brought on the removal, at least temporarily, of nearly every barrier that previously limited telehealth.

While telehealth advocates have preached that telehealth is health, in 2020, we saw that come to fruition, particularly within the behavioral health space. You’d be hard pressed to find a behavioral health clinician today who has not held a remote session. So, what does this mean for the future?

As we look into the year to come, here are six trends we predict to see in 2021.

InSight + Regroup's CEO, Geoffrey Boyce, joins the Partnership to Advance Virtual Care to share lessons learned from the pandemic and how changes to legislative and regulatory environments could support patients and providers moving forward. 

InSight + Regroup's CEO, Geoffrey Boyce, recently joined Slice of Healthcare to share perspective on the current landscape of telepsychiatry.

How to Establish a Successful Hospital-Based Telepsychiatry Program

“How long will it take to set up? When can we launch it?”

These are the most common questions when jump-starting a telepsychiatry program. As telehealth adoption increases across hospitals and health systems, stakeholders should be cautious of unrealistic timelines and silver bullet solutions that don’t grasp the nature of behavioral health challenges within your community. 

More clinicians are choosing to work in telehealth than ever before. As the industry matures and more competitors enter the market, clinicians have more options in where they chose to work.  What makes them choose one provider organization over another?  

This year has seen remarkable changes across every element of the healthcare landscape. From the unforeseen curve ball thrown at a vulnerable U.S. healthcare system to the rapid, necessary adoption of telehealth across all care settings, 2020 is nothing like we’ve dealt with before.
With all this change comes a need to be introspective and understand how we can prepare for the days, weeks, months and years ahead. InSight + Regroup maintains partnerships with hospitals and health systems across the nation under unique circumstances to ensure access to timely psychiatric assessments.

To help give us a clearer picture of what hospitals have experienced and may continue to endure related to mental health patients, InSight + Regroup SVP & Medical Director, Dr. Mark Alter, gives his thoughts on the current hospital-based telepsychiatry landscape.

Over the last week racial events have triggered raw emotion across the country.

At InSight + Regroup we have zero tolerance for injustice, discrimination or racism. We take a stand for removing the structural barriers that impact Black, Indigenous and People of Color. Systemic racism exists within the healthcare system and within the communities and patient populations we serve. Black individuals are more likely to experience serious mental illness and more likely to receive inadequate treatment. We must do better.

We support Black voices and outcries against inequality. We want to play an active role in improvement.

As an organization that employs mental health professionals and serves hundreds of communities across the country, we must actively work to break down the health disparities within Black communities that make access to care inequitable.

We must do our part to learn, listen and examine our personal and systemic biases that make their way into treatment and into who has access to that mental health care.

We must examine our own operations and areas our organization is falling short.

We are asking our clinicians to acknowledge the historical, sociocultural, and individual factors that influence the care they deliver.

We are imploring our team to listen empathically to one another, to examine our personal blind spots to root out ways we maintain inequality, and to check-in on one another.

We are asking everyone to take time to learn and have assembled some clinician-recommended resources.

We advocate for a positive change in our country, and we appreciate what you do as well.

Thank you,

Geoffrey Boyce
Chief Executive Officer
InSight + Regroup

The immediate and long-term mental health effects of the COVID-19 crisis has significant implications for hospitals across the country who are bracing for a surge in the number of patients presenting with mental health issues in the wake of prolonged social isolation, rising unemployment, economic instability and pervasive fear, uncertainty and anxiety. Given the expected groundswell of mental health needs, hospitals are turning to telepsychiatry to provide as-needed psychiatric assessments and care.