The state of behavioral health: demand, supply, direct-to-consumer, and emerging treatments | Alli Oakes (Trilliant Health)

Alli Oakes, Chief Research Officer at Trilliant Health, walks through Trilliant's behavioral health report across demand, supply, and emerging treatments.

On demand, roughly one in four Americans is affected by a mental or behavioral health condition, and untreated costs extend well beyond direct care — unmanaged behavioral health issues exacerbate physical conditions and drive expensive downstream utilization including ED visits.

On supply, the picture is more nuanced than a simple shortage story. Psychiatry residency slots have grown 55% since 2018 and fill at 99%, suggesting insufficient positions rather than insufficient interest. Meanwhile, allied health providers and primary care physicians now prescribe two thirds of all behavioral health medications, reflecting how a non-specialized workforce is flexing into the gap.

The conversation also covers AI in behavioral health — where Alli draws a clear line between administrative use cases and the much harder clinical question — and a counterintuitive finding that D2C behavioral health care is on average more expensive for patients than traditional in-network care. Emerging treatments including TMS, psilocybin, and MDMA round out the discussion, where early signals from the Trump administration suggest growing appetite for research and regulatory flexibility.

Read the report here: https://www.trillianthealth.com/market-research/reports/2026-behavioral-health-report

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