The Troubling State of Mental Health in America: How evolvedMD Meets the Moment

In this blog you will learn:

• Key findings from Mental Health America’s 2025 State of Mental Health in America report.
• How evolvedMD’s collaborative care solution addresses key challenges highlighted in the report.

Mental Health America’s (MHA) 2025 State of Mental Health in America report paints a harrowing picture:

• For adults:
  • Over 60 million (23.4%) have mental health concerns.
  • 14 million reported experiencing serious thoughts of suicide.
• For youth:
  • 15.4% experienced a major depressive episode in the past year.
  • 10.1% reported serious thoughts of suicide in the past year.

Yet, access to timely, affordable, and high-quality care remains out of reach for millions.

Stigma is Partly to Blame, but the Problem is Systemic

Structural barriers and inefficiencies in the U.S. healthcare system, including fragmented care delivery, misaligned incentives, and silos between physical and behavioral health, prevent many patients from receiving care. Primary care providers have stepped in to fill the gap, but limited capacity and referral gaps make it nearly impossible to meet patients’ whole health needs.

At evolvedMD, we’re tackling these challenges head-on to help patients get the care they need, when they need it. How? Onsite, team-based, and outcomes-driven Collaborative Care (CoCM).

How evolvedMD’s CoCM Addresses the Report’s Findings

The Collaborative Care Model is a clinically validated approach that increases access to mental health care, improves clinical outcomes, and reduces the total cost of care. A recent study by Milliman shows explosive growth with participation among the commercially insured population increasing 22-fold.

While all five states that evolvedMD currently serves rank in the bottom half overall, indicating higher prevalence of mental illness and lower rates of access to care, we’re actively reversing these troubling trends with continued success in Arizona and beyond. We recently celebrated five years of partnership with HonorHealth, one of the largest health systems in Arizona, treating 17,000 unique patients across 27 primary care clinics.

Concerning Mental Health America’s report, here’s how evolvedMD’s unique CoCM approach tackles inaccessible care, unaffordable treatment, and provider shortages.

1) The Challenge: Access to Care

Despite rising prevalence and awareness, MHA found that 25% of adults with any mental illness (AMI) reported an unmet need for mental health treatment in the past year. Access to care in three of the states we serve rank among the lowest in the nation with highlights being:

• #33 – Utah
• #44 – Florida
• #45 – Arizona

The reality is that millions of Americans still can’t access mental health care, even in states with relatively better infrastructure.

How evolvedMD’s CoCM Addresses this Challenge: We know that seven in 10 U.S. patients prefer their PCPs to ask them about their mental health concerns, and that nearly 60% of patients who receive care do so from their PCPs. So, we meet patients where they are, by embedding licensed mental health professionals (master’s level social workers, counselors, marriage and family therapists, etc.) directly into primary care practices.

The Result: Patients receive mental health care in the same place they see their PCP. Since 2017, evolvedMD has increased access to care for over two million patients by integrating behavioral health services into primary care. Expanding services across five states, we’ve reached communities in dire need with many more markets to come.

2) The Challenge: Unaffordable Care

What good is accessible care if it’s unaffordable? Unfortunately, rising healthcare costs force many patients to make a difficult choice: pay high out-of-pocket costs or forgo treatment altogether. For adults reporting 14+ mentally unhealthy days a month, over 26% cite costs as the main barrier.

The numbers are staggering in the markets we serve, including more “affordable” states like New Mexico:

• New Mexico – #8 | 19.07% | 50,173 people
• Colorado – #28 | 25.37% | 179,874 people
• Arizona – #36 | 27.83% | 235,937 people
• Utah – #38 | 28.19% | 111,333 people
• Florida – #42 | 30.04% | 810,041 people

Nationwide, these figures indicate millions of Americans want help but simply can’t afford it. When cost is a barrier to care, and patients forgo treatment, mental health conditions are more likely to become severe and even more expensive to treat over time.

How evolvedMD’s CoCM Addresses this Challenge: Our approach removes the financial burden that often prevents patients from seeking care. Through collaborative care, we bill services using special CoCM codes that makes care affordable for patients and appropriately reimburses PCPs for services. For example, with insurance patients can expect to pay the same copay (say, $35 per visit) to see our licensed mental health professional as they would their PCP.

The Result: Affordable care empowers us to address mental health concerns early and effectively. Our patients receive care without financial strain, providers are appropriately reimbursed, and health systems reduce total costs of care by up to 15%.

3) The Challenge: Measuring Short-term Outcomes

There is a growing prevalence of mental illnesses, substance use disorders, and serious thoughts of suicide in the U.S. Here are prevalence rankings in the markets we serve:

• #10 – Florida
• #28 – Utah
• #41 – Arizona
• #47 – New Mexico
• #50 – Colorado

Yet even when patients manage to access care, many still face an unmet need: treatment without a clear goal or endpoint. Without measurable, short-term outcomes, patients often remain in care longer, keeping caseloads full and preventing new patients from accessing care.

How evolvedMD Addresses this Challenge: We use a measurement-based approach that drives meaningful, short-term outcomes. Using quantitative tools such as the PHQ-9 for depression and the GAD-7 for anxiety, we establish each patient’s baseline and track their progress over time. For example, a primary care provider screens their patients using both PHQ-9 and GAD-7 tools, log their scores into the EHR, and then refer these patients to our on-site Behavioral Health Managers to begin treatment. At each follow-up visit, patients are screened again, allowing us to measure progress and adjust treatment accordingly.

The Result: Over the last 12 months our measurement-based approach shows a significant response: For PHQ-9, 64% of patients achieved a 50% reduction or 10-point reduction from their most recent max assessment score within just five months. For GAD-7, it’s 63% of patients. These outcomes prove that 1) Our approach is clinically effective; and 2) We can graduate patients from care much faster, freeing up capacity to serve new patients.

Your Role in Changing the Narrative with evolvedMD’s CoCM Solution

Traditional healthcare and behavioral health models struggle to meet your patients’ needs. But evolvedMD’s onsite, team-based, and outcomes-driven CoCM solution is changing the narrative outlined in Mental Health America’s 2025 report:

• In 2024, we saw a 76% increase in unique patients served.
• We are now onsite at over 250+ primary care sites across five states.
• ~$45 million total cost of care savings in the last 12 months.

If you are a primary care leader committed to improving outcomes for your patients, providers, and practice, let’s work together to change the narrative. Please reach out to hello@evolvedmd.com if you’re interested in learning more. View our one-pager.