Psychiatric services (Washington, D.C.)
June 24, 2026 · via Europe PMC
Provider Type Market Share for Treatment of Depression in a Large Commercially Insured Population.
Glassman JR, Nikolov MC, Song S, Kaplan RM.
AI summary — for doctors, generated from the abstract only
Among commercially insured patients with depression, about 39% were treated only by mental health professionals, 34% only by primary care physicians, and 10% by both.
What was studied
A cross-sectional observational study of 133,886 Blue Cross Blue Shield members with major depressive disorder claims in January 2019, examining provider types over the following year.
Key findings
- 38.8% treated exclusively by mental health professionals; 33.6% exclusively by PCPs; 9.7% by both; 17.8% other/unspecified
- PCP-only care had lowest expenditures and visits; combined care had highest
- Patients with higher severity more often saw both mental health and primary care providers
- PCPs infrequently treated depression more than once annually
Clinical relevance
This highlights that a large share of depression care occurs in primary care, often with infrequent visits, raising questions about follow-up intensity; outcomes by provider type are unknown.
Who should care
Limitations
Claims-based, cross-sectional; no clinical outcome data; nearly 18% with unspecified provider types.
Primary care handles a third of depression care, often with only one visit a year.
This is an AI-generated summary of the published abstract, not a clinical recommendation. It may not reflect the full text or subsequent updates — verify against the original source before acting on it.
Abstract
Objective
This study aimed to examine the distribution of differing types of professionals providing depression care for a large sample of commercially insured patients.
Methods
The Blue Cross Blue Shield Axis database, which includes >60 million commercially insured individuals, was used to conduct a cross-sectional observational study of 133,886 members with claims for major depressive disorder in January 2019.
Results
Of the sample, 9.7% (N=13,053) received depression-related care from both a mental health professional and a primary care physician (PCP) in the year following diagnosis, 38.8% (N=52,013) were treated exclusively by a mental health professional, and 33.6% (45,007) were treated exclusively by a PCP. For the remaining 17.8% (N=23,813) of members, provider types in claims were listed as "other" or unspecified. Annual health care expenditures and number of visits were lowest for patients receiving depression-related care from PCPs only and highest for those being treated by both mental health professionals and PCPs. A greater percentage of patients with higher diagnostic severity visited both mental health and primary care providers compared with patients with lower severity.
Conclusions
Patients experiencing depression visit a wide variety of providers. PCPs infrequently treated patients for depression more than once annually and were associated with patients with lower annual health care expenditures and lower diagnostic severity. However, outcomes associated with different approaches to depression management are not clearly understood. Randomized trials or trials simulating randomization that compare outcomes for patients managed by different types of health care professionals, with different treatment modalities and frequencies, are needed.
DOI
10.1176/appi.ps.20240585
PMID
42337428
Research metadata (titles, abstracts, authors, publication dates) is sourced from Europe PMC, which aggregates content from PubMed/MEDLINE, PubMed Central, and other providers under the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM/NCBI). NLM does not claim copyright on abstracts; the original journal publishers or authors may hold rights to the full articles. AI-generated summaries are derived only from the abstract, never the full text, and are always labeled as AI-generated.
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