Friday, June 18, 2004

Health Care Access For Low-Income People: Significant Safety Net Gaps Remain
An Issue Brief from the Center for Studying Health System Change - "Despite signs that low-income and uninsured people's access to primary health care services has improved, serious gaps in care exist, especially for specialty physician, mental health and dental care, according to the Center for Studying Health System Change's (HSC) 2002-03 site visits to 12 nationally representative communities. Key factors contributing to these gaps in the safety net include declining private physician and dentist involvement, changes in funding and facilities, and more people in need. Community leaders have developed a variety of innovative strategies to add specialty, mental health and dental services but could benefit from more support from state and federal policy makers."  
  

Patterns of Mental Health Service Utilization and Substance Use Among Adults, 2000 and 2001
SAMHSA OAS report - "This report presents estimates of the prevalence of mental health treatment among adults and describes the types of treatment received and the characteristics of persons receiving treatment based on data from the 2000 and 2001 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA). The NHSDA, which was renamed the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) in 2002, is a nationally representative survey of the civilian, noninstitutionalized population aged 12 or older and is conducted annually by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Summary results from the 2002 NSDUH were released in September 2003 (Office of Applied Studies [OAS], 2003). The more extensive analysis of the 2000–2001 data presented in this report is not comparable with the analysis of data from the 2002 survey because of methodological improvements made in the survey in 2002 that affected prevalence estimates."  
  

Faxing Patients' Protected Health Information
An "Ask the Experts about HIPAA Compliance" article at Medscape - "There is controversy about what is an acceptable transmission of patient information by fax under HIPAA's medical privacy rule. If an insurance company requests a copy of a claim by fax, is this compliant? If another person in our organization is performing audits and requests a copy of patient information (chart, claims, encounters, etc.), can this be sent by fax?" [Viewing Medscape resources requires registration, which is free].  
  

Mental health center prognosis improves (Pennsylvania)
Public Opinion story - "Things are almost back to normal at Cumberland Valley Mental Health Center, 533 S. Main St., after the center postponed a round of payroll checks on April 30. ... The center provides mental health services to more than 3% of the people in Franklin County. The center manages medications for 750 of the 4,500 people who use the center annually. The center got into cash-flow problems because of problems with the state system reimbursing the mental health center. A life-skills program serving 14 severely mentally challenged adults closed May 14 and will not reopen, according to Waters. A majority of the clients have been placed. Waters decided to close the adult training facility after two of the seven employees there quit when they failed to receive their paychecks on time. A third was on medical leave. The state requires the program to have a minimum staff. The uncertainty spilled over into other areas..."  
  

Jail to start mental health screening (Iowa)
Iowa City Press-Citizen story - "Members of the Johnson County Board of Supervisors voted Thursday to launch a screening process to identify jail inmates with mental illness in hopes the expense outweighs long-term costs for keeping people in the crowded jail system. ... Upon arriving at the jail, people will answer a seven-question evaluation to help identify whether they could benefit from mental health services. The goal is to reduce repeat offenses by connecting people with needed programs upon release or to possibly divert people from the jail into other programs."