‘Pretty Damn Awful’: Covid Long-Haulers Find Mental Care Elusive

‘Pretty Damn Awful’: Covid Long-Haulers Find Mental Care Elusive

Posted on May 6, 2021

Davis was already prone to suicidal thoughts as someone with bipolar disorder. Then he got the coronavirus in April 2020. Lingering effects have left him with anxiety and a depression he calls “pretty damn awful.” A research study reported in Lancet Psychiatry found a third of Covid-19 survivors were diagnosed with a neurological or psychiatric condition in the six months after being infected; 17.4% had an anxiety disorder. Even if survivors like Davis are able to push past the stigma that’s long caused people to shy away from mental health treatment, finding a provider that’s covered by insurance and still accepting new patients can seem insurmountable. “You might have an insurance card, but actually finding a provider in-network is extraordinarily hard even for people with quote-unquote good insurance,” said Jennifer Snow, director of public policy at NAMI. Most large plans have some mental health coverage, ”but even with the increased coverage we still find actually getting care is a problem for many people,” Snow said. “Many times people are forced to get care out-of-network, which can make care unaffordable.”