Three hotlines offering Americans mental health crisis support saw the quality of their services remain consistent and their communications increase, even as the federal agencies managing them saw a slight decline in staff, according to a Government Accountability Office report published on Aug. 6.
The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, Veterans Crisis Line and National Maternal Mental Health Hotline generally saw calls, texts and chats increase in fiscal 2025 compared to fiscal 2024, the watchdog found.
Performance metrics remained largely consistent across the three hotlines amid the spike in communications, according to the report.
The 988 Lifeline saw answer rates — the percentage of contacts routed to crisis contact centers and answered by crisis counselors — hold steady for calls and texts throughout fiscal 2025 at levels comparable to past fiscal years, GAO found. The hotline also saw the average response times for calls remain steady throughout fiscal 2025 but did see large variations in the average response times for texts and chats.
The Veterans Crisis Line saw monthly answer rates for texts, chats and calls remain “high throughout [fiscal] 2025” — 89% to 99% — and “consistent with previous years,” according to GAO. The average response time for answered calls and texts in fiscal 2025 were 8.6 and 27.1 seconds, respectively, which are comparable to the averages from fiscal 2021 through 2024, the watchdog concluded.
The National Maternal Mental Health Hotline saw “high” monthly answer rates for calls and texts of 92% to 95% throughout fiscal 2025, the report found. Throughout the fiscal year, 89% to 94% of hotline contacts had wait times of less than 30 seconds, it added.
Staffing changes
The findings suggest that the performance of all three mental health support hotlines was largely insulated from the operational challenges other federal agencies faced following sweeping 2025 reductions in force.
The departments of Health and Human Services and Veterans Affairs lost some employees working on the hotlines under 2025 reductions in force, GAO found.
The 988 Lifeline coordinating office, for example, saw its headcount drop from 24 to 18 during fiscal 2025, according to GAO. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which oversees the office, had not backfilled those positions as of February 2026.
But the watchdog cautioned that overall workforce changes for the 988 Lifeline are unknown because the number’s crisis responders are employed by over 200 local crisis contact centers. GAO did not tabulate workforce changes for these local facilities.
A May 2026 survey in JAMA, however, found that 71% of 988 Lifeline center leaders say their center is understaffed and almost 90% of them reported difficulty acquiring resources to hire staff.
“This study suggests that 988 Lifeline center staffing shortages could be associated with operational demands, underscoring the importance of increased investments to bolster the 988 Lifeline workforce,” the medical journal’s survey concluded.
The Veterans Crisis Line saw its workforce remain largely steady, dropping to 1,149 in April 2026 from 1,162 in October 2024, according to the GAO report. Additionally, the hotline’s responder turnover rate hit 18% in fiscal 2025, which is on par with the 17% it saw in fiscal 2024, the report added.
HHS lost four of the six full-time employees dedicated to providing oversight of National Maternal Mental Health Hotline operations under an April 2025 reduction in force, the Health Resources and Services Administration told GAO. Those four positions have not been filled and staff from other programs have been fulfilling oversight responsibilities as of March 2026, the agency told GAO.
The watchdog did not assess whether the contractor that operates and staffs the hotline, Postpartum Support International, saw a change in staffing levels.
A spokesperson for Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., who requested the GAO report, did not return a request for comment by the time of publication.
