"This is a great idea," says Madelyn Gould, a psychiatrist at Columbia University and an expert on suicide prevention.
The current National Suicide Prevention Lifeline number — 1-800-273-TALK or 1-800-273-8255 — can be difficult for people to remember in the midst of a crisis, she says.
"People can have a cognitive shutdown or blank, as any of us do, when we can't remember things during times of extreme stress," she says.
Having a three-digit hotline, she says, will "facilitate people's access to care at times when they are in dire need."
Her research shows that the current suicide prevention lifeline can save lives — that when people who are feeling suicidal call and talk to someone, they do tend to feel better.
And the existing number is being used by a large number of people. In 2018, the lifeline answered more than 2 million calls, up from about 46,000 in 2005, according to the report submitted by the FCC. Gould thinks a three-digit hotline will make it easier for more people to call.
"A 911 for the brain"
The FCC proposal stems from a congressional mandate in the National Suicide Hotline Improvement Act of 2018, which required the agency to work with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the Department of Veterans Affairs to evaluate the effectiveness of the suicide prevention lifelines and consider the feasibility of having a three-digit dialing code for mental health emergencies.
Americans know to call 911 for all other kinds of emergencies, says David Covington, the CEO of RI International, a nonprofit that provides behavioral health care around the country.
"When my father was having chest pains we immediately called 911," says Covington. "It's very straightforward what you do in our society in case of fire, or medical or other emergencies."
But "we don't have a 911 for the brain," he adds.
And the stigma around mental illness makes people hesitate to seek help during a mental health crisis, says Covington. Those who do, either call the suicide prevention lifeline, or end up in a hospital emergency department after calling 911, he says.
"The most common experience for individuals who make it through to some kind of hospital emergency department is to wait for hours and days in order to get a referral," says Covington.
He says he hopes the new hotline will reduce stigma and make it easier for people to seek help.
"Having a three-digit national hotline would go a long way in beginning to normalize that it's OK to seek help," he says.
"It's reinforcing the idea that seeking help is good," agrees Gould.
Gould hopes that the new hotline will encourage more people to call before they start feeling suicidal. "If we can have people recognize that there's help in times of extreme depression or anxiety," she says, then the crisis is less likely to "escalate to the point where they're so overwhelmed that they may think that suicide is the only solution."
Challenges of keeping up with call volume
Gould cautions that just launching a new three-digit hotline isn't enough.
"The only way this is going to work is if additional services are funded," she says.