Since being launched in 2022, crisis counselors working for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline have answered more than 10 million calls.
The hotline provides free, confidential support for people who are in emotional distress, connecting them to trained counselors and local resources. The number of calls being made to the hotline has been increasing in the past year, a trend that mental health professionals think will only continue.
During a panel on Tuesday at the Behavioral Health Tech conference in Phoenix, two executives at behavioral health care companies discussed why it is important for provider organizations to partner with the 988 lifeline.
“People go to 988 when they don’t know where to go for care. And unfortunately, in our current healthcare system, a lot of people don’t know where to turn for behavioral health care,” said Isobel Rosenthal, co-founder and medical director of Nema Health, which offers online trauma therapy for people with post-traumatic stress disorder.
She said the hotline presents an “amazing psycho-educational opportunity” to teach patients about a wide range of behavioral conditions.
The mental health space is similar to the physical health world in that clinicians have different ways of treating a range of different disorders, Rosenthal noted.
“When I think about how we can work with 988, I think about the fact that a lot of times, people call 988 and they may be reporting symptoms that sound like depression or anxiety, but then you find out that they’ve actually been exposed to a clinical trauma. So you provide psycho-education about what PTSD is, and then someone says, ‘Oh, that actually sounds like what I’ve been experiencing.’ Then you can send them to specialty behavioral health care,” she explained.
Another panelist — Caroline Fenkel co-founder and chief clinical officer of Charlie Health — also said that she sees an opportunity for behavioral health startups to partner with the 988 hotline.
Charlie Health is a high-acuity mental health care provider focusing on suicide prevention and treating patients who are in crisis.
“At Charlie Health, we talk a lot about how we can create a frictionless experience similar to how it would be if you get cancer treatment — you go and see an oncologist, and they quickly get you into chemotherapy, and you have a caseworker who’s talking to you. Why is that not happening in mental health treatment? Why do I have to sit and navigate and call five different numbers and figure out where the mobile crisis [center] is and figure out which emergency room actually has a psychiatric unit? These are all things that nobody should have to worry about when they’re in crisis,” she explained.
In her view, Charlie Health should be connected to all of the places that patients call in times of crisis, including their health plan, their primary care provider and the emergency room.
Photo: Wacharaphong, Getty Images
