Buchman said it can be an easy and quick entry point for parents who want to get their teens into mental health care.

But Klein said it also has flaws, namely that the patient must be referred to another therapist after the initial sessions. It's hard for a parent to drag a teenager through this process, especially one who doesn't want to be there in the first place.

"I think that's a deterrent right there," Klein said. "I think that's an access barrier."

Regence, for one, tries to keep the disruption to a minimum, Buchman said.

"Everyone is going to bend over backward to keep that teen from having to tell their story twice," she said. "I won't say it doesn't happen, but everyone is on board to see that it doesn't happen."

Insurance companies offer a panel of mental-health providers. But the lists are not always up to date; the majority don't see new patients, and few take children.

"There's not many people who see adolescents because adolescents are a pain in the butt," said Chris Wehl, a Salt Lake psychologist.

Most teenagers don't want to be seen. Consequently they will downplay any struggles they're having, if they talk at all, he said. They'll say they're fine and that their parents are overreacting.

"A lot of it is about availability. We have a scarcity of child psychiatrists," Wittwer said.

It's not uncommon to find doctors' schedules full and patients having to wait weeks or months for an appointment.

"This is just not an acceptable way you treat someone hanging on by their fingernails," Wehl said.

Buchman agrees that finding providers is difficult. "We struggle with that quite a bit," she said. "Psychiatrists are very rare."

Ken Tuttle, clinical psychiatry director at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center, says medical students are not being drawn into the profession because it's difficult to make a living and insurance reimbursements are poor.

Hospital beds for children with pressing mental problems are also in short supply, and according to Tuttle, it again comes down to money.

"People aren't adding psychiatric beds, because it's not a profitable business," he said.

It has been a long, challenging road for Jill Roberts.

As a high school student in Springville, her emotional life was a roller coaster. High, happy times blended with days so dark she'd stay in bed for weeks. One semester she missed 36 days of school.

From age 14 to age 17 she catapulted between exhilarating highs and excruciating lows. Student body president, debate, swim team, soccer all-stars. Three days of high "rapid cycling" to two days of low, low, low.