Overcoming Obstacles to Care: How Families Can Access the Highest-Quality Treatment for Young People

Every teen and young adult who is struggling—regardless of background, economic status, or geographical location—deserves the highest-quality treatment available. Meanwhile, the data on lack of access to mental healthcare is devastating: Statistics from Mental Health America show that 60 percent of youth with depression—and in some states, more than 70 percent—receive no mental health services at all. Even among the states with greatest access for youth, 1 in 3 young people are still not receiving the care they need.

What Prevents Families from Accessing Care? 

Here are the most common obstacles that prevent teens and young adults from receiving the care they need:

• The cost of treatment—many families don’t seek care because they don’t realize that insurance coverage is available
• Stigma around seeking help
• Limited treatment programs or providers: 85 percent of primary care practices find it difficult to obtain services for children with behavioral health disorders
• No way to tell which programs provide safe and effective treatment

Let’s look more closely at some of these barriers to accessing care.

The 5 Top Indicators of High-Quality Care

A major obstacle to accessing care is the difficulty in determining which treatment program to choose. Families are often confused about how to identify programs that will provide safe, effective, and compassionate treatment. However, there are critical signifiers that demonstrate a company’s commitment to the highest-quality care.

Here are five all-important factors to look for when seeking treatment:

1. Accreditation: A program’s recognition by national accrediting bodies is a clear signifier of treatment quality. Look for accreditation from organizations such as The Joint Commission, the nation’s oldest and largest healthcare accreditation body, which sets the highest standards for healthcare quality; and LegitScript, the only certification available for top-rated treatment centers, granted only after completing a rigorous application process. 

2. Partnerships with leading organizations and companies: Affiliations and partnerships with respected organizations indicate that a treatment program is trustworthy and is held accountable. These include relationships with national insurance payers, including top providers such as Anthem, Kaiser Permanente, and Blue Cross Blue Shield; and with respected organizations in the field, like the American Psychological Association, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. 

3. An evidence-based clinical model: The best treatment programs take an integrated approach that includes both medical and behavioral healthcare. Moreover, they provide trauma-informed care utilizing scientifically validated treatment modalities, such as CBT, DBT, and family therapy. Experiential modalities, such as Adventure Therapy, are provided with the utmost attention to clients’ safety and sense of security. 

4. Outcomes research: The highest-quality mental healthcare programs rigorously track and analyze their treatment outcomes, utilizing a third-party research organization—ideally affiliated with an educational institution. Moreover, these programs publish their outcomes results annually, and use them internally to continually uplevel their treatment approach.

5. Licensed and credentialed staff: Clinical staff at the highest-quality treatment programs hold up-to-date licensure and advanced degrees from reputable educational institutions, while experiential therapists have appropriate credentials and accredited training. Healthcare leadership should have demonstrated and extensive experience guiding top-tier companies in the delivery of successful, safe, and compassionate care.

Overcoming Financial Barriers to Care

As recently as 20 years ago, clients were forced to pay out of pocket for mental health and substance abuse treatment. Today, many insurance payers cover outpatient and residential treatment programs, and they are much more willing to provide coverage when they know a program offers safe, effective, and clinically driven treatment. Moreover, young adults can now stay on their parents’ healthcare plan until age 26, meaning that their mental healthcare is also covered.

It’s essential that policymakers, insurers, and treatment programs continue to work together to create greater access to affordable mental healthcare, as the need will only increase. Annual US mental health spending is more than $200 billion, and the global cost of mental healthcare is expected to rise to $6 trillion by 2030—greater than the costs of diabetes, respiratory disorders, and cancer combined. 

Newport Healthcare is dedicated to making treatment financially accessible for young people and families. We work with major insurance companies, both in and out of network, to ensure that companies pay as much of the treatment cost as possible for policyholders.

How Newport Prioritizes Access to Care 

As the leading provider of teen and young adult treatment, Newport is dedicated to providing access to care to every client who comes to us, through:

• Creating financial access: We build collaborative relationships with a wide range of healthcare payers, and work with them to optimize the benefit coverage for all those who are seeking affordable residential treatment or outpatient care. 
• Expanding geographic access: To address the lack of access to care in many areas around the country, Newport Academy and Newport Institute are opening new locations in regions where the number of treatment programs and mental healthcare providers fall short of the growing need. 
• Reducing stigma: Our mission and vision focus on reducing the stigma associated with seeking mental healthcare, through educational initiatives, outreach, and collaborative campaigns with national organizations.

Ultimately, our goal is to remove as many obstacles to accessing care as possible, so that every young person and family will have the freedom to take the first steps toward sustainable healing.