Of the 1 in 5 U.S. adults with at least one mental health condition, fewer than 40% receive any care. Wait lists for psychiatrists are often 2 to 5 months long.
But it’s not just patients who are feeling the imbalance of supply and demand.
The prevalence of unstructured practice notes in behavioral health means that clinicians are increasingly encumbered by documentation overload, often spending 1.5 to 2 hours on charting for every 6 to 8 sessions.
While groups like the American Medical Association (AMA) have suggested a number of pathways to improve efficiency, from leveraging telehealth to adopting team-based collaborative care models, more is needed to close care gaps.
The problem with traditional approaches is that they barely address the issue at the heart of care access: a lack of time.
Transforming unstructured notes from a patient encounter into a cohesive, compliant document is time consuming, and few technologies have delivered on their promise of greater efficiencies. Unfortunately, providers’ unique note-taking styles have not been reliably replicated. Until now.
Organizations like Indiana Health Group (IHG), a large multi-specialty behavioral health practice based in Carmel, have turned to clinical AI specifically designed to replicate the provider’s documentation style.
While the 60-provider group benefitted from being an early adopter of EHRs, IHG providers found that the practice of inputting notes directly into the EHR during a patient visit hindered the patient experience. So many providers would opt to document care after hours.
