HealthDay (3/29, Mundell ) reported an analysis found that “U.S. rates of suicide by all methods rose steadily for adolescents between 1999 and 2020” as “over 47,000 Americans between the ages 10 and 19 lost their lives to suicide,” with “sharp increases year by year.” The findings were published in JAMA Network Open.
Related Links:
— “Steady Rise in U.S. Suicides Among Adolescents, Teens,”Ernie Mundell, HealthDay, March 29, 2024
The Hill (3/30, Lonas ) reported a poll from the EdWeek Research Center shows that “teenagers are increasingly using social media to self-diagnose their mental health issues,” specifically, “55 percent of students use social media to self-diagnose, and 65 percent of teachers say they’ve seen the phenomenon in their classrooms.” The poll also shows that “72 percent of educators believe social media has made it easier for students to be more open about mental health struggles they are facing.”
Related Links:
— “Teens’ latest social media trend? Self-diagnosing their mental health issues,”Lexi Lonas, The Hill , March 30, 2024
The New York Times (3/30, Span ) detailed rising concern over older Americans’ drinking habits, with CDC data showing that “the annual number of alcohol-related deaths from 2020 through 2021 exceeded 178,000.” Furthermore, a National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism analysis “shows that people over 65 accounted for 38 percent of that total,” and “from 1999 to 2020, the 237 percent increase in alcohol-related deaths among those over age 55 was higher than for any age group except 25- to 34-year-olds.” The Times added that “an aging population foreshadows a continuing surge that has health care [professionals] and elder advocates worried, even if older people’s drinking behavior doesn’t change.”
Related Links:
— “The New York Times (requires login and subscription)
Psychiatric News (3/26) reports, “People who take serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and oral anticoagulants have an increased risk of multiple types of major bleeding compared with people who take only oral anticoagulants, a study…has found.” Additionally, the research “showed that bleeding risk differs depending on the type of anticoagulant.” The findings were published in JAMA Network Open.
Related Links:
— “Combining SSRIs With Oral Anticoagulants Found to Increase Risk of Major Bleeding,” (3/26) reports, “People who take serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and , March 26, 2024
RevCycle Intelligence reports, “It may take some time to get paid for medical services, suggests a new survey of hospitals, health systems and post-acute care providers.” Almost “15% of medical claims submitted to private payers for reimbursement are initially denied, respondents representing over 500 organizations told Premier Inc. in the survey.”
And “an average of 3.2% of denied claims also included those that were pre-approved through the prior authorization process.” In spite of “the initial claim denial rate, over half of the claims rejected by private payers at first were paid,” Premier Inc. reported, but physicians “said that more initial denials may have been ultimately reimbursed if not for resource constraints that prevented them from pursuing payments through appeals and other means.”
Related Links:
— “Private payers initially deny nearly 15% of medical claims,” Jacqueline LaPointe, Revcycle Intelligence, March 25, 2024
Healio (3/21, Burba ) reports, “The average number of deaths from excessive alcohol use increased by 29.3% from 2016 to 2021, with an age-standardized rise in death rate from 38.1 to 47.6 per 100,000 population, according to data in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.” Investigators found that “the average number of annual deaths from excessive alcohol use increased by 5.3% from 2016 to 2019 (137,927 to 145,253) and ‘increased more sharply’ — by 22.8% — from 2018 to 2021 (145,253 to 178,307), an overall increase of 29.3% from 2016 to 2021.” Meanwhile, “the age-standardized death rates increased from 38.1 to 47.6 per 100,000 population between 2016 and 2021.”
Related Links:
Annual deaths from excessive alcohol use increased by nearly 30% from 2016 to 2021, Kate Burba, Healio, March 25, 2024
MedPage Today (3/22, Monaco) reported, “Concomitant use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and oral anticoagulants (OACs) in patients with atrial fibrillation was tied to an increased risk of major bleeding compared with OAC use alone, a case-control study suggested.”
This “population-based study from the U.K. showed that taking an SSRI and OAC (both direct OACs and vitamin K antagonists [VKAs]) together was associated with a 33% increased risk of major bleeding compared with OACs alone.” The data indicated that “compared with use of OACs alone, concomitant use of SSRIs plus OACs was linked to a significantly higher risk for several specific types of major bleeding.”
The findings were published in JAMA Network Open.
Related Links:
— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)
The AP (3/23, Perrone ) reported that “hundreds of free apps…are being pitched to address a crisis in mental health among teens and young adults.” The FDA does not regulate them “because they don’t explicitly claim to diagnose or treat medical conditions,” but “this hands-off approach is coming under new scrutiny with the startling advances of chatbots powered by generative AI.” The industry’s “argument is simple: Chatbots are free, available 24/7 and don’t come with the stigma that keeps some people away from therapy.” However, there are “limited data that they actually improve mental health.”
Related Links:
— “Ready or not, AI chatbots are here to help with Gen Z’s mental health struggles,” Matthew Perrone, Associated Press, March 23, 2024
HealthDay (3/20, Mundell , Miller) reports that approximately “1 in every 10 U.S. children ages 5 to 17 has been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to” data from the National Center for Health Statistics. These “data from the National Health Interview Survey covers the years 2020 through 2022 and came from in-person or phone interviews involving a representative sample of American homes.”
The survey “found that 11.3% of school-age children have been diagnosed with ADHD, with boys more likely to have this diagnosis (14.5%) than girls (8%).” These findings were published as an NCHS Data Brief.
Related Links:
— “One in 10 U.S. School-Age Kids Have ADHD: Report,” Ernie Mundell, Carole Tanzer Miller, HealthDay, March , 2024
Bloomberg Law (3/20, Pazanowski , Subscription Publication) reports, “A Trump administration rule that eliminated the Affordable Care Act’s protections for LGBTQ+ people must be vacated, Boston-based advocacy groups told a federal court in a long-running case.” The Biden Administration “has been promising to undo former President Donald Trump’s 2020 ‘rollback rule’ since early 2021 and still hasn’t done so, the advocacy groups said.”
And though HHS “keeps saying a new version is imminent, the potential for another change of administration means people can’t wait any longer, the groups said in Tuesday’s brief to the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts.”
Related Links:
— Bloomberg Law (requires login and subscription)