Access to behavioral health services can be a challenge for low-income adults, so the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently looked into those challenges.

In a new report, the GAO examined how many low-income adults have behavioral health problems, where they can go to receive the care they need – including whether there are differences in those options depending on whether the state in which the reside has expanded its Medicaid program – how Medicaid expansion states are providing coverage for behavioral health for newly eligible beneficiaries, and how obtaining Medicaid coverage affects the ability of such individuals to get the care they seek.

Access to behavioral health care can be an especially major challenge in the low-income communities typically served by the nation’s private safety-net hospitals.

Read about the GAO’s findings in the report Options for Low-Income Adults to Receive Treatment in Selected States, which you can find here.