On CBS News-60 Minutes (12/15), correspondent Scott Pelley reports that two years after the Newtown, CT shooting rampage, “we’ve learned that the killer suffered profound mental illness.” Even though “his parents sought treatment…at least once, their health insurance provider denied payment.” In investigating what some parents have gone through to get their children “psychiatric care,” CBS News “found that the vast majority of claims are routine, but the insurance industry aggressively reviews the cost of chronic cases.”

Forbes (12/15, Japsen) contributor Bruce Japsen points out that “Pelley highlighted several cases where doctors working for insurance companies, including Anthem (ANTM), denied claims by mentally ill patients in need of chronic long-term mental health care.” In addition, Pelley “said ‘60 Minutes’ found the claim denial rate often exceeded 90 percent by Anthem in cases it reviewed.” The segment “pressed the case that many of the cases were chronic and involved the need of patients for long-term care and that it largely came down to costs rather than quality of care provided.”

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— “Denied,” Scott Pelley, CBS News 60 Minutes, December 14, 2014.

HealthDay (12/12, Dotinga) reports that according to a study published in the December issue of the journal Health Affairs, nearly “half of US kids experience traumas that can disrupt their development.” Researchers arrived at this conclusion after “analyzing the results of a 2011-2012 survey of the parents of more than 95,000 children under the age of 17.” The survey focused on children “who experienced several types of trauma, such as living in extreme poverty, seeing their parents divorce, living with someone who was mentally ill or abused drugs/alcohol, having a parent who served time behind bars, or having a parent who died.”

Related Links:

— “http://consumer.healthday.com/kids-health-information-23/misc-kid-s-health-news-435/almost-half-of-u-s-kids-suffer-trauma-that-harms-their-health-for-years-study-694439.html,” Randy Dotinga, HealthDay, December 11, 2014.

The AP (12/12, Eaton-Robb) reports that nearly two years after the Dec. 14, 2012 shootings at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, “the scope of the psychological damage to children, parents and others is becoming clear, and the need for treatment is likely to persist a long time.”

Many townspeople are “reporting substance abuse, relationship troubles, disorganization, depression, overthinking or inability to sleep, all related to the” shooting rampage that cost 27 lives. Various agencies are putting together a long-term support system bolstered by $15 million in grant monies from the US Justice Department and the US Education Department, along with private donations made to the Newtown-Sandy Hook Community Foundation.

The town school system is putting into place a long-term program to help kids come to terms with what has happened. Meanwhile, the town has been consulting with outside experts to put together long-range plans to meet residents’ mental health needs for the next decade and beyond.

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— “IN NEWTOWN, MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS STILL EMERGING,” Pat Eaton-Robb, Associated Press, December 11, 2014.

HealthDay (12/11, Preidt) reports on a review of 16 studies by researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, finding that “restricting the number of locations where alcohol can be sold in a community may help reduce domestic violence.” The study considered “the number of alcohol sales outlets, hours of days of alcohol sales, and alcohol pricing/taxes,” but only the number of outlets had a consistent association with “higher rates of domestic violence.”

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— “Fewer Bars and Liquor Stores, Less Domestic Violence: CDC,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, December 10, 2014.

In continuing coverage, NPR (12/9, Jaffe, Benincasa) reported on its “Morning Edition” program and in its “Shots” blog that restrictions against nursing home residents being prescribed medically unnecessary antipsychotics are rarely enforced. Though they are not FDA-approved for the purpose, antipsychotics are often prescribed to elderly patients as a “chemical restraint” to treat the symptoms of dementia, in violation of the Nursing Home Reform Act. “We haven’t seen any evidence that, in this particular area of antipsychotic drugs, the CMS is taking action against states,” said Toby Edelman, a senior policy attorney with the Center for Medicare Advocacy, referring to the Federal agency in charge of administering Medicare.
Related Links:

— “Nursing Homes Rarely Penalized For Oversedating Patients,” Ina Jaffe and Robert Benincasa, National Public Radio, December 9, 2014.

In continuing coverage, on ABC World News (12/9, story 7, 1:10, Muir), chief medical editor Richard Besser, MD, reported on a study from Express Scripts that looked at 36 million prescriptions and found that “nearly half of those patients who are described a narcotic and took it for more than 30 days, they were still on it three years later.” Dr. Besser said these medicines “are meant for short-term use,” and according to the CDC, “46 people die from narcotic overdose, when they are combined with anxiety medication or sleeping pills” every day.

Related Links:

— “Study: A Nation in Pain,” Express Scripts, December 9, 2014.

The CBS News (12/10, Firger) website reports that according to a study published in JAMA Pediatrics, “children born to mothers who had preeclampsia during pregnancy are as much as twice as likely to develop autism spectrum disorder (ASD).” The study, which “involved 1,000 children age two and three years old,” all of whom had mothers with a history of preeclampsia, revealed that “the sicker a mother was with the disease, the more likely autism may occur in” her child.

Related Links:

— “Preeclampsia during pregnancy raises autism risk,” Jessica Firgir, CBS News, December 9, 2014.

HealthDay (12/6, Preidt) reported that according to a study published Dec. 5 in the journal PLoS One, “text reminders improve the chances that patients will stick with their medication regimen.” The study, which involved 300 patients who had been prescribed medications to lower cholesterol or control hypertension and who had been divided into a group receiving reminder texts and another group receiving no texts, revealed that “only nine percent of patients in the text message group stopped taking their medications, compared with 25 percent of patients who did not receive text messages.” Also covering the story were BBC News (12/6) and The Telegraph (UK) (12/5, Knapton).

Related Links:

— “Text Messages Remind People to Take Medications,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, December 5, 2014.

HealthDay (12/6, Preidt) reported that according to a study published online in the journal Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, “young adults who skip college are more likely to abuse prescription painkillers than their degree-bound peers.” Researchers arrived at this conclusion after analyzing “data collected between 2008 and 2010 from nearly 37,000 participants, aged 18 to 22, in the annual US National Survey on Drug Use and Health.” Notably, the association “between education and painkiller abuse among young adults was much stronger among women than among men,” the study also found.

Related Links:

— “Painkiller Abuse More Likely for Those Who Skip College: Study,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, December 5, 2014.

Medscape (12/6, Helwick) reported that according to research presented last month at the American Public Health Association’s annual meeting, “a survey of school shootings in the United States revealed that only 17% of the perpetrators had a diagnosis of mental illness, but several risk factors emerged that could have served as warning signs.” After identifying “157 school shooting incidents from 2005 to 2012, involving 403 students,” researchers found that the “most common motivating factors were an argument or fight (22%), gang-related or other crime (20%), and stalking or intimate partner violence (10%).”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)