According to a recent study from the Health Policy Institute of Ohio, 75 of Ohio’s 88 counties are designated as mental health shortage areas. Only 13 counties—Hancock, Marion, Delaware, Montgomery, Butler, Clermont, Lorain, Ashland, Lake, Geauga, Portage, Trumbull, and Mahoning—are not shortage areas.
Capacity and Specialist Gaps
The shortage is particularly acute for specialized services. Ohio has only 11 facilities statewide offering youth inpatient services, and 53 counties lack a child psychiatrist entirely. Only seven counties have more than 10 child psychiatrists. According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Ohio had 365 child and adolescent psychiatrists in 2024.
Becky Carroll, the study’s author and director of policy research and analysis at Health Policy Institute of Ohio, noted that families report experiencing wait lists as long as two years to access certain providers. “Without access to timely care, people’s mental health can worsen,” she said.
Supply-Demand Mismatch
Ohio’s behavioral health crisis reflects a fundamental imbalance in workforce growth. From 2013 to 2019, demand for behavioral health services surged 353%, according to the Ohio Council of Behavioral Health & Family Services Providers, while the behavioral health workforce expanded only 174% during the same period.
Teresa Lampl, CEO of the Ohio Council, framed it as a capacity problem: “We just simply don’t have enough people to provide care for the people that need care.” When patients experience delays, she explained, they often deteriorate and may require hospitalization or higher levels of care, extending treatment timelines.
Contributing Factors
Multiple challenges drive the shortage. High turnover and burnout among mental health professionals disrupt continuity of care for children, requiring them to restart treatment relationships and retell their histories. Carroll noted this can be “traumatic to relive.”
Mental health reimbursement rates are lower than physical health specialties, deterring entry into the field. Insurance disparities also affect access: families with private insurance report greater difficulty finding treatment for children ages 6-11 compared to those with Medicaid, which recognizes a wider range of professionals and services.
“It’s much harder if you have private insurance than it is if you have Medicaid,” Lampl said, characterizing it as “an insurance parity issue.”
This article is an AI-assisted summary. All facts and figures are drawn from the original report: https://www.crescent-news.com/apgstate/in-ohio-75-out-of-88-counties-are-mental-health-shortage-areas-according-to-new/article_99b20c9f-ebfb-5fe5-8279-af329db640f8.html