Claims Data Indicates Youth Mental Health Issues Have Increased

Mental health in children and teenagers has suffered during the coronavirus pandemic.

The U.S. surgeon general issued an advisory at the end of 2021 warning about a mental health crisis in youth, and a 2020 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested that mental health related emergency department visits in children started increasing in April of that year and stayed high through October.

A new report from Clarify Health Institute, the research arm of payments platform company Clarify Health, breaks down the data covering 2016 through 2021 for mental health related insurance claims for children ages 1 to 19.

Overall, there were increases in most claims related to mental health, sometimes very sharp increases starting in 2020.

The data includes claims for about 20 million children annually from 2016 through 2021, approximately covering the first two years of the coronavirus pandemic. The records include inpatient admissions as well as emergency department visits and outpatient/office professional visits. Inpatient admissions typically mean that the patient needs to stay overnight, whereas for outpatient visits they do not.