At least 3,700 out-of-state mental health providers utilized New Jersey’s COVID-19 Temporary Emergency Reciprocity Licensure program to provide mental health services to more than 30,000 New Jersey patients during the first year of the pandemic, according to a Rutgers study. The study, published in The Journal of Medical Regulation, surveyed health care practitioners who received a temporary license in New Jersey to examine the impact of the temporary licensure program on access to mental health care.
“The New Jersey program enabled patients with already-established care to maintain care continuity and patients seeking new care to have increased access to mental health services,” said Ann Nguyen, an assistant research professor at the Center for State Health Policy at the Rutgers Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research (IFH) and the lead author of the study. To read the full story.