According to HealthDay (3/11, Mundell ), a report has found that “the cost to American families of caring for a child with a mental health condition rose by almost a third between 2017 and 2021…to an average $4,361 per year.” Altogether, “American families spent an estimated $31 billion in 2021 on child mental health services, which now make up nearly half (about 47%) of all child medical spending, the report found.” The findings were published in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “Medical Costs for Kids’ Mental Health Jumped 31% in 5 Years,”Ernie Mundell, HealthDay, March 11, 2024

PatientEngagementHIT says, “The number of behavioral health visits to community health centers soared by nearly 40 percent between 2018 and 2022, but if these care sites are to continue to meet patient demand, they’ll need more federal funding, according to a new report from The Commonwealth Fund.” The report also “showed an overall increase in behavioral health visits – meaning mental health and substance use disorder visits – of 38 percent between 2018 and 2022. This increase is largely driven by an influx of mental healthcare encounters in community health centers, the data showed.”

Related Links:

— “Behavioral healthcare access in community health centers up 40%,”Sara Heath, PatientEngagementHIT , March 11, 2024

Healio (3/8, Weldon) said, “Four children born with HIV who initiated ART within 48 hours of delivery later remained in treatment-free remission for over a year after ART was paused, researchers reported.” The data were presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections.
HealthDay (3/8, Mundell ) reported that in the study, “four out of six newborns infected at birth with HIV went into long-term remission after prompt treatment with antiviral drugs.” All of the children “began receiving ART within 48 hours of delivery, in an effort to drive HIV into remission. When they reached the age of 5, doctors interrupted each child’s ART to see if their remission held without medication.”

Related Links:

— “Four children achieve treatment-free HIV remission for 1 year,”Rose Weldon, Healio, March 8, 2024

Healthcare Finance News (3/8, Lagasse ) reported, “At a rate of 72.3%, patients receiving opioid treatment through in-network insurance overwhelmingly stayed in treatment for at least 180 days, in comparison with those who were either out-of-network or uninsured and paying for treatment with cash, a new study finds.” Published in Health Affairs Scholar, the study found that “compared to cash-pay patients, those who could use in-network benefits had almost twice the retention rate for six months of treatment, a quality benchmark established by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.” Additionally, “uninsured cash-pay patients had a 48.1% retention rate, which was higher than the 37% six-month retention rate of insured out-of-network cash-pay patients.”

Related Links:

— “Insurance coverage improves opioid use disorder treatment retention,”Jeff Lagasse, Healthcare Finance News, March 8, 2024

Psychiatric News (3/8) reported, “A meta-analysis…suggests that biperiden, mirtazapine, and vitamin B6 are the three most effective treatment options for” patients with “antipsychotic-induced akathisia.” Investigators analyzed “data from 15 randomized clinical trials testing potential pharmacotherapies for akathisia in people taking antipsychotics.” Altogether, “the combined data included 492 patients, 324 of whom received an active drug and 168 received placebo.” The findings were published in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “Mirtazapine and Vitamin B6 May Be Best Options for Antipsychotic-Induced Akathisia, Psychiatric News, March 8, 2024

Healthcare Finance News (3/8, Lagasse ) reported, “Through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the Biden administration has earmarked nearly $50 million for HRSA’s Rural Opioid Treatment and Recovery Initiative.” The investment “will support establishing and expanding comprehensive substance use disorder treatment and recovery services in rural areas, including by increasing access to medications for opioid use disorder such as buprenorphine.”

Related Links:

— “Feds launch $50M rural opioid treatment initiative,”Jeff Lagasse, Healthcare Finance News, March 8, 2024

Healio (3/7, Welsh) reports, “Opioid and teratogenic medication prescriptions decreased and prescriptions for medications for diabetes and mental health conditions increased among pregnant women after 2010 in the U.S., researchers reported” in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. According to the study, “the most prescribed medications in MarketScan data were ondansetron (16.8%), amoxicillin (13.5%) and azithromycin (12.4%), and the most prescribed medications in MAX/TAF data were nitrofurantoin (22.2%), acetaminophen (21.3%) and ondansetron (19.5%).” Additionally, “the most prescribed medications in NHANES were levothyroxine (5%), sertraline (2.9%) and insulin (2.9%).”

Related Links:

— “Changes in prescription medication use by pregnant women after 2010 in US,”Erin T. Welsh, Healio, March 7, 2024

STAT (3/7, Lee, Subscription Publication) reports, “Girls across the globe are hitting puberty earlier than ever before,” and “researchers aren’t sure why.” According to STAT, “Girls who undergo precocious puberty are also more likely to be victims of bullying during childhood, and they have a higher risk of depression, social anxiety, eating disorders, and substance misuse.” Additionally, “recent research has also demonstrated that precocious puberty has mental health effects that persist into adulthood, with young adults who went through early puberty more likely to experience depressive symptoms than those who matured at an average age.”

Related Links:

— “Girls are starting puberty earlier than ever. For some, that comes with major mental health risks,” Alexa Lee, STAT, March 7, 2024

The New York Times (3/7, Richtel ) reports, “Increasingly, doctor visits by adolescents and young adults involve mental health diagnoses, along with the prescription of psychiatric medications.” A new study published in JAMA Network Open “found that in 2019, 17 percent of outpatient doctor visits for patients ages 13 to 24 in the United States involved a behavioral or mental health condition, including anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, self-harm or other issues.” That result was up “sharply from 2006, when just 9 percent of doctor’s visits involved psychiatric illnesses.” Additionally, “in 2019, 22.4 percent of outpatient visits by the 13-24 age group involved the prescription of at least one psychiatric drug, up from 13 percent in 2006.”

Related Links:

— “The New York Times (requires login and subscription)

NBC News (3/6, Silva , Bendix ) reports, “Desperate patients around the country have been forced to choose between paying out of pocket for essential medications or forgoing them entirely as the aftermath of a cyberattack on a major health care company stretches into its third week.” Since Change Healthcare “detected the attack on” February 21, “pharmacies, doctors offices and patients say their lives and work have been upended due to widespread outages in systems commonly used for medical billing and insurance claims.” American Medical Association President Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, said, “Anything that requires interaction between health plans, a pharmacy, a facility, an office has been disrupted. … That has far-reaching implications, whether you’re on routine, standard medications, whether you rely on a rebate program from a pharmaceutical company, whether you’re just trying to get clearance to have routine elective surgery.”

Related Links:

— “Patients struggle to get lifesaving medication after cyberattack on a major health care company,”Daniella Silva and Aria Bendix, NBC News, March 6, 2024