Sunday, August 07, 2005

Court clarifies TennCare questions (Tennessee) Story in The Tennessean - "Issuing a new order outlining what the state can and cannot do to limit TennCare benefits, a federal judge said officials now have all the information they need to decide whether about 97,000 sick people can stay in the program. State officials said last night they were encouraged by U.S. District Judge John Nixon's ruling, but remained noncommittal."  
  

Wall Street Journal Examines Eli Lilly's Tactics To Persuade Physicians To Prescribe Antidepressant Cymbalta Item in the Kaiser Daily Health Policy Review - "The Wall Street Journal on Friday examined how pharmaceutical companies' contracts with insurers and medical organizations to sell their drugs sometimes restrict 'unflattering statements about the costs and risks of drugs when they communicate with health practitioners.' For example, Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly offers health facilities a 5% discount for the antidepressant Cymbalta, but the contract states that most of the discount could be revoked if the facility engages in certain actions, including 'negative [drug utilization review] correspondence to physicians.' A drug utilization review is a type of analysis of prescription patterns often used by insurers to identify risky or inappropriate practices and to reduce expenses. Pharmaceutical industry officials have said that insurers or other groups could use DURs to encourage doctors to use lower-cost drugs that might not be as effective. The Cymbalta contract also restricts 'negative educational counterdetailing,' a practice often used by insurers to counterbalance a drug maker's sales pitch to doctors that can focus on recommending generic drugs."  
  

State plans new mental health hospital in Fergus (Minnesota) Fergus Falls Daily Journal story - "The state is readying plans to move out of the Regional Treatment Center -- by readying plans to build a new mental health hospital in Fergus Falls. The 16-bed community behavioral health hospital will be located on about 2.5 to 3.2 acres of land at the intersection of County Roads 1 and 15, just past Alcott Avenue in Fergus Falls, according to Kent Mattson, an attorney who is coordinating the RTC reuse process. Mattson said that construction of the estimated $3.4 million facility, which has been nearly three years in the making, is anticipated to begin in late September or early October and be completed by May 1, 2006."  
  

Veto worries local mental health care providers, clients (Texas) Fort Worth Star-Telegram story focusing on Paradise, a Fort Worth community center - "Paradise Center is threatened by Gov. Rick Perry's veto of a bill designed to retain local control of mental health dollars. ...The bill Perry vetoed would have slowed the transfer of decision-making ability from the state's local mental health/mental retardation centers to Austin bureaucrats. Local mental health care providers fear that groups like Paradise will be less likely to get funding from Austin than they are from the local MHMR offices. They also worry that local government won't continue to fund programs because the money would first go to regional or statewide offices instead of staying at home. Some local mental health providers could close, and others could face substantial funding cuts, said Jim McDermott, executive director of MHMR of Tarrant County. In the Fort Worth area, $24 million administered by McDermott's organization could revert to the state for distribution. MHMR centers statewide could lose more than $150 million."  
  

Mental Health Issues: The Impact of Explosive Growth (Nevada) Red Nova story on the growing need for services in Nevada - "Both private and public juvenile service providers cannot keep up with demand. Hospitals are often on divert status as a result of too many mental health patients taking up emergency room beds, resulting from too few psychiatric facilities being available to meet their needs. One-third of emergency-room beds and one-fifth of detention beds are occupied by mental health patients. And more than one-tenth of the prison beds are also occupied by mental health patients. Sound familiar? Welcome to the criminal justice system in southern Nevada. And that system is feeling the pinch of this growth in a major way. Law enforcement, the courts, prisons and all their related services, have felt the need to evaluate their roles and examine the scope of their duties in order to focus their efforts in fulfilling their respective and collective responsibilities. Legislative changes as the state has matured have impacted law enforcement, corrections and everything in between. "