Monday, March 15, 2004

Proving the Value of Behavioral Health Benefits: The PacifiCare Behavioral Health Model
Article in the Open Minds newsletter - " Today it's difficult to read a daily newspaper that doesn't include at least one article about the increasing lack of affordable health care. Health insurance is often looked upon as a necessary evil, but one that employers continue to provide - often at decreased coverage levels or with a portion of the premium costs shifted to their employees. As health care premiums make deeper cuts into profits, do payers wonder if they're getting a more valuable product? Probably not. But perhaps they should demand that health care insurers provide them with data that support the value of the benefits they do purchase. Prudent companies would ask this of virtually any other comparable business expenditure. Why not of health care? Once employers have a clear grasp on how their health care premiums contribute to increased workplace productivity and decreased absenteeism, they might view these dollars as providing them a clear bottom-line return - not simply as a cost of doing business..."  
  

Antipsychotic Medications: Compliance and Attitudes Towards Treatment
Article in Current Opinion in Psychiatry at Medscape - "A review of a number of selected reports published during one year, from September 2002, about compliance and attitudes towards antipsychotic medication revealed several clinical and research themes..." [Viewing Medscape resources requires registration, which is free].  
  

Cultural Competence in Health Care: Is it important for people with chronic conditions?
An issue brief from the Georgetown University Center on an Aging Society - "The increasing diversity of the nation brings opportunities and challenges for health care providers, health care systems, and policy makers to create and deliver culturally competent services. Cultural competence is defined as the ability of providers and organizations to effectively deliver health care services that meet the social, cultural, and linguistic needs of patients. A culturally competent health care system can help improve health outcomes and quality of care, and can contribute to the elimination of racial and ethnic health disparities. Examples of strategies to move the health care system towards these goals include providing relevant training on cultural competence and cross-cultural issues to health professionals and creating policies that reduce administrative and linguistic barriers to patient care..."  
  

Britain Warns Over High Doses of Glaxo Antidepressant
Reuters Health story at Yahoo - "Britain's Committee on Safety of Medicines advised doctors on Thursday not to prescribe higher doses of GlaxoSmithKline Plc's antidepressant Seroxat, which is sold as Paxil in the United States. Committee chairman Gordon Duff said in a statement that increasing the dose beyond recommended levels did not appear to increase the efficacy of the drug and might be detrimental in some cases..."  
  

Doctors wary of Medicaid drug list (New York)
Albany Times-Union story - "With prescription drug costs driving Medicaid costs upward, this may be the year that Gov. George Pataki and state legislators, after several years of haggling, come to an agreement to create a list of 'preferred drugs' for Medicaid recipients. A panel of experts would create a list of medicines that are effective, but not too costly. The hope is that drugmakers will lower their prices to get their meds included on the Medicaid list. Most of New York's elected officials agree on those goals, but a political fight is looming over their differences. Up in the air is how difficult it will be for doctors to obtain "prior authorization" before they can prescribe an unlisted drug. And whether for some conditions like mental illness, for which it's argued that individual medicines matter, should be exempted from the list entirely..."  
  

Child psychiatrists in demand across U.S.
Story in the Observer-Reporter (Pennsylvania) - "A national shortage of child psychiatrists is forcing parents and children to wait up to two months for appointments and mental health clinics and hospitals to scurry to find qualified help. Experts say the problem has developed because parents are more accepting of mental-health diagnoses for children and because not many medical students are exposed to child psychiatry as a specialty..."  
  

Mental health care reform is spiraling out of control (North Carolina)
Op/ed piece in the Star News by Si Cantwell - "North Carolina's mental health reform is beginning to look like a runaway train: unstoppable, out of control and capable of great harm. That's the opinion I came away with Friday after attending a Brunswick County community forum on mental health care organized by the Brunswick Counseling Center, part of the statewide Baptist Hospital Care Net..."  
  

Conference focuses on mental health resources (Montana)
Story in the Billings Gazette on the conference, “Montana Mental Health – A County Safety Net.” The story notes that conference organizers "hope to draw legislators and other elected officials, law enforcement and members of the public to a discussion on mental health resources. The meetings will take place March 22-24 at the Colonial Inn in Helena."  
  

Mental Health Website Launched (New Zealand)
Brief Newstalk ZB story at XtraMSN - "A new website has been established to dispel some of the myths surrounding schizophrenia. Mindnz.co.nz is an interactive site providing information for people wanting to find out more about the illness and support for sufferers and their families." See also the MindNZ web site.  
  

New mental health hospital to open in Detroit (Michigan)
Story at mLive.com - "A new mental health hospital to serve Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties is expected to help stem a decline in hospital beds for the mentally ill in southeast Michigan. The former Saratoga Hospital is being refurbished into the Circle of Life Health Care Center, a private 90-bed facility that would serve mentally ill adults and children, The Detroit News reported Sunday. The center could open as soon as August. The hospital would help fill the void left by the closure of the Northville Psychiatric Hospital in May. Hospital beds for the mentally ill in the region have declined 45 percent over the last decade, from 1,965 in 1994 to 1,088 last year..."