“Some of America’s most challenging behavioral health care problems include a key disadvantage: They’re not very profitable to treat,” Caitlin Owens writes over at Axios. “Why it matters: Serious mental illness and addiction have a profound effect on families and communities, but their complexity and their concentration among lower-income people make them issues that the private market has little incentive to solve. The big picture: More than 100,000 Americans are dying of drug overdoses every year, and around 5% of the adult population experiences serious mental illness each year.
- Fentanyl use, addiction and serious mental illness — often in the context of homelessness — have become increasingly controversial political topics, partially a reflection of their growing societal impact.
- But despite a clear need for more behavioral health care, the supply of such care is lacking, and millions of Americans go without treatment….
- Oncology, for example, is generally much more attractive from a business perspective than primary care.
- Near the bottom of the profitability ranking is behavioral health care. That’s in no small part because people suffering from serious mental illness and addiction tend to have poorly paying government insurance or can’t pay at all.”
Caitlin Owens, “Mental health and addiction care falls short because it’s not profitable,” Axios.
