{"id":24584,"date":"2025-07-01T09:17:25","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T13:17:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/?p=24584"},"modified":"2025-07-01T09:17:28","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T13:17:28","slug":"access-to-mental-health-under-medicare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/?p=24584","title":{"rendered":"Access to mental health under Medicare"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Medicare does not cover all healthcare services for older adults; however, one area of healthcare that is particularly challenging to access under Medicare is mental healthcare. \u201cAccording to a study in JAMA Health Forum, adults with psychological distress saw a decrease in outpatient mental-health visits and had less access to psychotropic medication once they became eligible for Medicare.\u201d As the population of older adults is increasing, a loneliness epidemic and increased alcohol use among older adults have triggered around $6.7 billion in excess Medicare spending a year. Jessica Hall, writing for MarketWatch, explains how seniors can face a high price for accessing mental healthcare under Medicare or Medicare Advantage. Read Ms. Hall\u2019s article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marketwatch.com\/story\/older-adults-are-more-likely-to-end-up-in-the-er-or-hospital-when-relying-on-medicare-for-this-vital-service-3b85d8b7\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.marketwatch.com\/story\/older-adults-are-more-likely-to-end-up-in-the-er-or-hospital-when-relying-on-medicare-for-this-vital-service-3b85d8b7\">here\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/dreamstime_m_68090890widow-grief-lonely-thinking-serious-700x467.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"700\" height=\"467\" src=\"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/dreamstime_m_68090890widow-grief-lonely-thinking-serious-700x467.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7998\" style=\"width:149px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/dreamstime_m_68090890widow-grief-lonely-thinking-serious-700x467.jpg 700w, https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/dreamstime_m_68090890widow-grief-lonely-thinking-serious-700x467-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><strong>Notice:<\/strong>\u00a0The link provided above connects readers to the full content of the posted article. The URL (internet address) for this link is valid on the posted date; medicarereport.org cannot guarantee the duration of the link\u2019s validity. Also, the opinions expressed in these postings are the viewpoints of the original source and are not explicitly endorsed by AMAC, Inc.; the AMAC Foundation, Inc.; or medicarereport.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Medicare does not cover all healthcare services for older adults; however, one area of healthcare that is particularly challenging to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,6,9,48],"tags":[80,61,62,91,94],"class_list":["post-24584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aging","category-medicare-general","category-medicare-advantage","category-mental-healthbehavioral-health","tag-cms","tag-medicare","tag-medicare-advantage","tag-mental-health","tag-older-adults"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24584"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24585,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24584\/revisions\/24585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}