Telehealth Program Doubles Rural Veterans’ Access to Mental Healthcare

Research News

August 4, 2026

Access to high-quality mental healthcare in rural communities remains a challenge, particularly given the fact that more than 4.4 million Veterans live in rural areas -nearly one-quarter of the nation's Veteran population. In 2019, VA developed 18 regional Clinical Resource Hubs (CRHs) to increase Veterans' access to clinical services, mainly through telemedicine and telemental health. CRHs are VISN-level resources that use VA telehealth technologies (i.e., video visits, telephone-based services) to provide care to Veterans where there are gaps in access, such as in rural settings. Previous evaluations of the CRH program found that mental health conditions prevalent in VA primary care (i.e., depressive disorders, PTSD) were frequently diagnosed and treated in CRHs.

Conducted by HSR and VA investigators with the VA Puget Sound Healthcare System, this retrospective cohort study evaluated trends in CRH mental health services among Veterans living in rural settings. Investigators examined CRH mental health encounter data (i.e., clinical visits or patient contacts) for the first five years of the CRH program (FY 2020-2024). Results of this study were published in a recent article titled "Veterans Affairs Clinical Resource Hub Improves Access to Mental Health Services for Rural Veterans" and showed that the amount of telemental health services provided by the CRH program to rural Veterans more than doubled over a 5-year period. CRH mental health teams completed 627,436 encounters, with 82% delivered via telemedicine among Veterans residing in rural or highly rural settings. Findings also showed that care delivery shifted substantially over those five years, with video visits to a patient's home increasing from 9% to 64%, while clinic-based video visits declined from 78% to 7%. Study findings underscore the importance of developing strong CRH infrastructures to ensure Veterans' access to high-quality mental healthcare.