{"id":5665,"date":"2026-06-10T17:04:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T00:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/familymedicine.uw.edu\/rhrc\/?p=5665"},"modified":"2026-07-01T17:04:39","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T00:04:39","slug":"new-wwami-rhrc-report-examines-rural-marriage-and-family-therapist-and-mental-health-counselor-workforce-under-medicares-reimbursement-expansion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/familymedicine.uw.edu\/rhrc\/2026\/06\/10\/new-wwami-rhrc-report-examines-rural-marriage-and-family-therapist-and-mental-health-counselor-workforce-under-medicares-reimbursement-expansion\/","title":{"rendered":"New WWAMI RHRC Report Examines Rural Marriage and Family Therapist and Mental Health Counselor Workforce Under Medicare\u2019s Reimbursement Expansion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Effective January 1, 2024, marriage and family therapists (MFTs) and mental health counselors (MHCs) can independently bill Medicare for mental health services. A new policy report from the WWAMI Rural Health Research Center examines how the MFT and MHC workforce changed before and after this policy was implemented, along with rural health system leaders\u2019 perspectives on the barriers and facilitators to utilizing this new policy to expand rural mental health services.<\/p>\n<p>What the report found:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>From before to after this policy change, both the Medicare-enrolled MFT and MHC workforce grew in urban and rural counties.<\/li>\n<li>Following the policy change, about half (43.6%) of rural counties had at least one Medicare-enrolled MHC and 13.9% had at least one enrolled MFT, compared with over half of urban counties that had at least one enrolled MHC (76.4%) and MFTs (47.9%), respectively (Q4 2024).<\/li>\n<li>Workforce shortages, low reimbursement rates, and administrative burdens may limit the impact of Medicare\u2019s recent coverage expansion for MHCs and MFTs on rural behavioral health services.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A policy change like this is only as good as its reach,&#8221; said Janessa Graves, PhD, MPH, Director of the WWAMI Rural Health Research Center. &#8220;Our job is to track whether the MFT and MHC workforce is actually growing in the rural counties that have had the least access to mental health care, so we know where the gaps still are.<\/p>\n<p>The report was authored by Janessa M. Graves, Natalia V. Oster, Lisa A. Garberson, Davis G. Patterson, and C. Holly A. Andrilla of the WWAMI RHRC.<\/p>\n<p>Read the full report: <a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/3RSbnh6\">bit.ly\/3RSbnh6<\/a><\/p>\n<p>More information about our Medicare policy research related to MFTs and MHCs can be found here: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ruralhealthresearch.org\/projects\/1068\">https:\/\/www.ruralhealthresearch.org\/projects\/1068<\/a><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5667,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-rhrc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/familymedicine.uw.edu\/rhrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/familymedicine.uw.edu\/rhrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/familymedicine.uw.edu\/rhrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familymedicine.uw.edu\/rhrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familymedicine.uw.edu\/rhrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5665"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/familymedicine.uw.edu\/rhrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5668,"href":"https:\/\/familymedicine.uw.edu\/rhrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5665\/revisions\/5668"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familymedicine.uw.edu\/rhrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/familymedicine.uw.edu\/rhrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familymedicine.uw.edu\/rhrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familymedicine.uw.edu\/rhrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}