General Mental Health Articles
- Jenny’s tragic story left me with many questions – what were the underlying causes of mental illness? What spurred the spiral into addiction? Why did individuals turn to substance use? – that, even after six years as a mental health social worker working in prisons and psychiatric hospitals, I had neither the knowledge nor experience to answer. A postgraduate diploma helped me better understand the theories of mental health from neuroscientific, psychiatric, and pharmacological perspectives. Read more here.
- Taxes aren’t enjoyable for people of any age, but they can be particularly stressful for younger generations, many of whom may have never filed before. In fact, 1 in 4 Gen Z taxpayers said they’ll need a therapist to deal with the stress of tax-filing season, according to a recent Cash App Taxes survey. Read more here.
- The first few years of the Formerly Incarcerated Transitions (FIT) Wellness program were limited to helping people in Wake County with mental illness who had recently been released from state prison. Evan Ashkin, a family physician from UNC Health who helped found the program in 2017, said that FIT Wellness was able to serve 45 to 50 people a year in this “very vulnerable population.” That meant helping them get connected to psychiatric services, housing, and employment — in short, services that would enable them to succeed. Read more here.
- Six years ago, the California Mental Health Services Authority (CalMHSA) entered into a three-year $35 million agreement with 7 Cups and another company, the now-defunct Mindstrong Health, to connect residents to free emotional support. The agreement was part of a plan called Tech Suite that would use technology to connect California residents to mental health help. Problems started emerging soon thereafter. To the alarm of LA County officials, online trolling and unwelcome sexual messages were found to be prevalent in user communications. Read more here.
- The distribution of for-profit and nonprofit behavioral health organizations varies widely across the U.S. Some states have high percentages of for-profit providers, such as North Carolina, with 51%. In contrast, others, like North Dakota, rely almost exclusively on nonprofit and government-operated organizations. Regulatory, economic, and demographic factors may explain differences in for-profit and nonprofit provider concentrations. These conditions require careful analysis when providers seek to expand to a market in a new state, industry insiders told Behavioral Health Business. Read more here.
Youth Mental Health
- Since the U.S. surgeon general’s 2023 advisory on social media and teen mental health, public concern has skyrocketed around adolescents’ digital lives. Major news organizations and state governments have pinned social media apps as addictive, dangerous, and the cause of the youth mental health crisis. In turn, calls to ban teens from social media apps have started to emerge, with mixed reception from policymakers nationwide. Read more here.
- Teenagers are increasingly using social media to self-diagnose their mental health issues, alarming parents and advocates who say actual care should be easier to access. A poll by EdWeek Research Center found 55 percent of students use social media to self-diagnose, and 65 percent of teachers say they’ve seen the phenomenon in their classrooms. Read more here.
- Children visiting the emergency department (ED) for mental health crises during the pandemic had longer stays and more severe diagnoses, according to a new study in Academic Emergency Medicine. The study was based on ED visits to nine U.S. hospitals participating in the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network Registry from 2017 to 2022. The authors looked at four periods: pre-pandemic (January 2017 through February 2020), early pandemic (March through December 2020), 2021, and 2022, and calculated rate ratios (RRs) of observed to expected visits per 30 days during each pandemic time period. Read more here.
Mental Health Parity
- With rates of suicide and opioid deaths rising in the past decade and children's mental health declared a national emergency, the United States faces an unprecedented mental health crisis. But access to mental health care for a significant portion of Americans — including some of the most vulnerable populations — is extremely limited, according to a new government report. The report, from the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General, finds that Medicare and Medicaid have a dire shortage of mental health care providers. Read more here.
Gender-Affirming Care
- A new survey found that LGBTQ Americans are twice as likely to experience discrimination in their health care. The survey, conducted by KFF, noted that members of the LGBTQ community have historically faced disparities while receiving health care, including challenges to accessing mental and physical health care. Thirty-three percent of LGBTQ adults reported negative experiences while receiving health care in the previous three years, compared to 15 percent of non-LGBTQ adults. Read more here.
Federal and State Policy
- The Biden administration followed through on its proposal to cut next year's base payments to Medicare Advantage plans an average of 0.16%, despite pressure from insurers and their allies in Congress. While the plans will wind up seeing a net increase once payments are risk-adjusted to account for the health of their customers, the news sent shares of UnitedHealth, CVS Health, and Humana and Centene falling amid predictions of continued financial pressure. Read more here.
- More kids than ever are covered through the Affordable Care Act as the law's insurance markets help catch those affected by the nationwide Medicaid enrollment purge that began a year ago. The transition to the ACA marketplaces from Medicaid or a sister program just for kids comes with tradeoffs that hundreds of thousands of families may be discovering about their child's new coverage. Generally speaking, the coverage may not be as generous, and families may have to switch doctors, but they'll have a wider choice of providers. Read more here.
- Some providers have already taken the extraordinary step of terminating their contracts with MA plans, and survey data suggests many more are considering doing so in the near future. Hospitals have been sounding the alarm about an uptick in MA plans denying claims, paying less than what providers bill for, and taking too long to review requests to authorize care, which they say is wreaking havoc on revenue streams. Read more here.
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