Given a choice between driving to a clinic and being treated in their own living room, most people picked the drive.
We funded a poll that reached 443 adults living in ten Midwest states, with one question about format: if you pursued ketamine or esketamine therapy, where would you want it to happen? A clinic won the plurality at 44 percent. Telehealth from home drew 22 percent, 23 percent asked to start at a clinic and move home afterward, and 11 percent said it made no difference. Every figure is final.
That preference collides with a fact about the treatment itself, and the gap is worth walking through. These are the questions readers keep asking.
What did people actually pick?
Two of the four answers put a clinic in the picture, and together, at 67 percent, they are the clear majority. A supervised room is not the option people tolerate; for most it is the one they want.
One caveat. This was a general-population panel, not a list of people already seeking treatment, so you are reading what ordinary adults imagine wanting, which may differ from what a patient in care ends up choosing.
Why would anyone choose the harder logistics?
Nobody here was indifferent to travel; 43 percent put nearness to home among their top two provider priorities. Distance costs people something real.
They chose the clinic anyway, and the likely reason sits in the same question. Coverage dominated that list, named in the top two by 85 percent. Insurance also shaped willingness directly: it settled the question for 22 percent and weighed heavily for another 43 percent, 65 percent either way. A clinic is where a supervised, billable, credentialed version of care lives, so if coverage is your gate, the building is part of the answer.
Can I get the FDA-approved version at home?
No. If you take one fact from this page, take that one.
Spravato is the brand name for esketamine, and the FDA has cleared it only for treatment-resistant depression. The label requires a certified health care setting with clinician supervision: you take the dose on site and stay to be monitored. That is not a clinic's preference or an upsell; it is built into how the medication is approved and distributed. Brain Recovery Centers explains how its supervised Spravato sessions run for readers who want to see it concretely.
So the 22 percent of respondents who want at-home telehealth are not describing a home version of the approved treatment, because none exists. They are describing a different product, whether they realize it or not.
Then what is at-home ketamine?
A separate and much grayer market. Generic or compounded ketamine prescribed after a telehealth visit and taken at home is not FDA-approved esketamine given in a certified setting, and it lacks the same approval, oversight, and monitoring.
We are not calling it worthless, and we are not calling it fine. They are two different things sharing part of a name, and a marketing page can blur them in one sentence. When you read an ad, ask which one is on offer. Whether either route suits you is a clinical question, best answered by someone who has seen your chart, your medication list, and your blood pressure readings.
Is the hybrid people wanted a real option?
The clinic-then-home answer was the most interesting result, because it is less a product request than a description of how people expect medicine to work: start where the supervision is, and let it ease as things stabilize.
What that looks like depends on the treatment and on a clinician's judgment about you. It is not a menu item picked at booking, and no honest provider can promise a step-down schedule in advance. If a site advertises one, ask more questions, not fewer.
Why had almost nobody heard of the approved option?
Asked about Spravato by name, 73 percent of respondents said it was new to them, a further 21 percent recognized the word without being able to define it, and only 6 percent could say what the product is.
That frames the whole delivery question. People told us how they want care delivered for a treatment more than nine in ten of them cannot describe. Their clinic preference is not a comparison between informed options; it is an instinct about safety, formed before the details arrive.
Are people hostile to the idea?
Not really. Our reaction question on ketamine for depression or PTSD put cautious but open on top (34 percent), then skeptical (21), then hopeful or curious and never-encountered (18 each), with 9 percent negative. The dominant posture is caution, and specifics answer it: the setting, who watches you, how long you stay, the cost, and the plan if it does not help.
What should I ask before I book anything?
- Which medication is this, exactly: the approved esketamine spray, or some other ketamine product?
- Where does the dose happen, and is the setting certified for it?
- Who observes me afterward, for how long, and what are they watching for?
- How do I get home, and can I drive?
- Is it covered, is prior authorization needed, and what do I owe after a denial?
- Who do I reach at two in the morning if something feels wrong?
- What is the plan if this does not work for me?
A vague answer to a supervision question is itself information.
How much weight should I put on these numbers?
Some, not more. This is consumer research about expectations. It does not test whether any treatment helps, carries no clinical weight, and is not medical advice. The survey has no breakdown of the at-home group, so we have no way to tell whether it lives farther from a city, is younger, or pays cash, and we will not guess in print.
Before you close this page, one thing matters more than any survey result. If your mind has gone to ending your life, you do not have to carry that alone tonight. Call or text 988 on any day, at any hour, and a trained Lifeline counselor picks up. Reaching out early, before things get worse, is allowed.
Methodology
The publisher ordered this study and bore its cost. Pollfish handled survey 395586438 through its consumer panel, and it stopped accepting responses on June 23, 2026; 443 respondents aged 18 through 64 from ten Midwest states completed it. Questions permitting several answers are expressed against the full respondent base, so those totals pass 100. Every figure has passed the panel's final validation.