ArticleHealth affairs scholar2024
Insurance acceptance and cash pay rates for psychotherapy in the US.
Article in Health affairs scholar, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed.
- Facilitated Transitions to Postpartum Primary Care and Mental Health Care Services: Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2026Trial
- Occupational Licensing and Psychologist Supply.Health economics · 2026Article
- Use, Modality, and Reimbursement Patterns of Outpatient Psychotherapy Among Children With Commercial Insurance.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- Mental health care access in rural communities amid the expansion of telehealth.Health affairs scholar · 2026Article
- Mental Health Therapy Utilization Among Transgender Medicare Beneficiaries, From 2011 to 2019.Medical care research and review : MCRR · 2026Article
- Article
- Antidepressant Maintenance Versus Active Monitoring After Depression Remission: A Decision Analysis Stratified by Relapse Risk and Patient Preferences.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Using Demand Analysis to Examine Private Practice Mental Health Providers' Decision to Accept Health Insurance.Administration and policy in mental health · 2026Article
- Beyond abstinence: Redefining success in cannabis use disorder treatment.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2026Article
- Latent Profile Analysis of Distinct Patterns of Treatment and Assessment Practices among Youth Mental Health Providers.Administration and policy in mental health · 2026Article
- Treatment of opioid use disorder in pregnancy among individuals with and without co-occurring stimulant use disorder: A retrospective cohort study.Journal of substance use and addiction treatment · 2026Article
- Combination treatment for chronic insomnia disorder in adults: an American Academy of Sleep Medicine systematic review, meta-analysis, and GRADE assessment.Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine · 2026Review
- Private Practice Providers' Experiences and Perceptions of Working in Public Mental Health Settings: A Mixed-Methods Study.Psychiatric services (Washington, D.C.) · 2026Article
- Desirable insurance coverage for electronic mental health services: a qualitative study on perspectives and preferences of university students and menta.BMC health services research · 2025Article
- Estimating Medicaid Reimbursement For Psychological Services.Health affairs (Project Hope) · 2025Article
- Reported Strategies by Medicaid Managed Care Organizations to Improve Access to Behavioral Health Services.The Milbank quarterly · 2025Article
- ACA network regulatory filings are inaccurate, poorly match provider directories.The American journal of managed care · 2025Article
- Telehealth Use for Mental Health Treatment Among US Adolescents.The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine · 2025Article
- Medicaid managed care organizations' experiences with network adequacy.Health affairs scholar · 2025Article
- Assessing TDApp: An AI-based clinical decision support system for ADHD treatment recommendations.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Cost and insurance coverage remain important barriers to mental health care, including psychotherapy and mental health counseling services ("psychotherapy"). While data are scant, psychotherapy services are often delivered in private practice settings, where providers frequently do not take insurance and instead rely on direct pay. In this cross-sectional analysis, we use a large national online directory of 175 083 psychotherapy providers to describe characteristics of private practice psychotherapy providers who accept and do not accept insurance, and assess self-reported private pay rates. Overall, about one-third of private practice psychotherapists did not accept insurance, with insurance acceptance varying substantially across states. We also found significant session rate differentials, with Medicaid rates being on average 40% lower than reported cash pay rates, which averaged $143.26 a session. Taken together, low insurance acceptance across a broad swath of mental health provider types means that access to care is disproportionately reliant on patients' ability to afford out-of-pocket payments-even when covered by insurance. While our findings are descriptive and may not be representative of all US psychotherapists, they add to scant existing knowledge about the cash pay market for an important mental health service that has experienced increased use and demand over time.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.