The Telehealth Factor: What 2025 Trends Signal for Community-Based Behavioral Health Providers
Community Service Board of Middle Georgia (CSBMG)
February 2026
Introduction
Telehealth has transitioned from an emergency response tool during the COVID-19 pandemic to a permanent component of health and human service delivery. While early assumptions suggested that virtual care might drive higher service utilization, emerging evidence tells a more nuanced story—particularly for behavioral health providers. An examination of telehealth use trends in 2025 offers important insights for community-based organizations navigating evolving payer expectations, workforce shortages, and consumer preferences (Oss, 2026).
Telehealth As a Substitute—Not an Expansion
Recent research examining Medicare fee-for-service utilization found that telehealth largely replaced in-person outpatient visits rather than increasing overall service volume. Across medical specialties with low, medium, and high telehealth adoption, total outpatient visits declined following the pandemic. Telehealth accounted for approximately 5.3% of visits in low-use specialties, 9.1% in medium-use specialties such as primary care, and 43.8% in high-use specialties, including behavioral health. Despite this growth, overall utilization fell by 14%, 17%, and 18%, respectively, across these categories (Oss, 2026).
These findings challenge the notion that digital access alone expands capacity. Instead, constraints such as clinician shortages, limited provider availability, and selective consumer use appear to shape how telehealth is integrated into care delivery.
Implications for Outpatient Behavioral Health Services
For behavioral health providers, telehealth is no longer viewed as optional or supplemental. Health plans and consumers increasingly expect organizations to offer a hybrid continuum of care, incorporating in-office, in-home, and virtual service options. Payment structures are evolving accordingly, with bundled and episodic rates often assuming lower-cost digital encounters embedded within broader care models (Oss, 2026).
For organizations like CSBMG, this shift reinforces the importance of aligning clinical operations with payer expectations while preserving access for rural and underserved populations. Telehealth, when strategically deployed, can enhance flexibility and continuity without necessarily increasing service demand.
The Digital Transformation of Facility-Based Care
Digital integration is also reshaping facility-based and crisis services. Episodic payment models increasingly assume extended responsibility for consumer outcomes, supported by community-based follow-up and digitally enabled aftercare. This model spans a wide range of services—from crisis stabilization and residential treatment to hospital-at-home and long-term supports—requiring providers to think beyond traditional walls of care (Oss, 2026).
This evolution mirrors long-standing predictions within the field that technology-enabled services would become foundational rather than exceptional. As digital tools become embedded across service lines, provider organizations are challenged to adapt infrastructure, workflows, and staffing models to remain responsive and sustainable.
Innovation In Action: Program Models To Watch
Throughout 2025, provider leaders increasingly looked to innovative program models that reflect this hybrid, tech-enabled future. Program profiles highlighted by industry analysts showcased advances across autism services, mental health supports, crisis response, specialty populations, and integrated care models. Common themes included trauma-informed design, community integration, peer and social connection, and the strategic use of digital tools to enhance—not replace—human-centered care (Oss, 2026).
These emerging models underscore that innovation in behavioral health is not solely about technology, but about how technology supports access, engagement, and continuity across the care continuum.
Looking Ahead
As telehealth becomes an assumed element of service delivery, the strategic question for community-based providers is no longer whether to adopt digital care, but how to integrate it effectively within mission-driven, person-centered systems. For CSBMG and similar organizations, the path forward lies in balancing innovation with accessibility, ensuring that technology enhances care delivery while remaining responsive to workforce realities and community needs.
The telehealth trends of 2025 reinforce a critical lesson for the field: sustainable service models are built not on volume alone, but on flexibility, integration, and outcomes that matter to both payers and the people served.
References
Oss, M. E. (2026, January 30). The telehealth factor: Most popular OPEN MINDS program profiles of 2025. OPEN MINDS.