Phone‐only mental health care within the Department of Veterans Affairs: Associations with rurality, age, sex, and clinical severity

OBJECTIVE: This study explores factors associated with an increased likelihood of receiving mental health (MH) care exclusively via audio-only phone visits within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). METHODS: Included patients had ≥1 VA MH outpatient encounter between October 1, 2021-September 30, 2022 and October 1, 2022-September 30, 2023. Patients were divided into a "phone only" group and an "all other" group, which encompassed all patients who did not exclusively receive phone care, including video and/or in-person care. Logistic regression models evaluated demographic and clinical predictors of receiving MH care via phone only. RESULTS: The sample included 1,156,146 patients; 49,125 (4.25%) in the phone only group and 1,107,021 (95.75%) in the all other group. The following were associated with greater odds of receiving MH care via phone only in a multivariate model, all Ps<.0001: being highly rural (OR = 1.50), age 65+ (ORs ≥2.17), with fewer than 3 MH diagnoses (OR = 2.03), and >50% of MH visits conducted by a medical MH provider (OR = 1.87). CONCLUSIONS: Patients who were rural and older had greater odds of receiving MH care exclusively by phone. It will be important to assess whether this was by choice or whether they are experiencing barriers to accessing video or in-person care that could be addressed. Patients who were less clinically severe and were seen primarily by a medical MH provider were also more likely to receive phone-only care. Future research should examine the relative effectiveness of audio-only care as compared to video and in-person.