The AP (3/31, Stobbe) reports that on Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a surveillance summary showing “no change in how common autism is among US children.” Currently, approximately one “in 68 school-aged children” appears to “have autism or related disorders,” the same figure “as it was when health officials checked two years earlier,” the report published April 1 in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report reveals. It is “too soon,” however, to determine if “the number is stabilizing, said Daisy Christensen,” PhD, the report’s lead author.

According to CNN (3/31, Manella), data for the report were “collected from the CDC’s Autism and Development Disabilities Monitoring Network, which is a tracking system that provides estimates of the prevalence and characteristics of autism among eight-year-old children in 11 communities” across the US.

Related Links:

— “NO CHANGE IN HOW COMMON AUTISM IS IN US KIDS: ABOUT 1 IN 68,” Mike Stobber, Associated Press, March 31, 2016.

Modern Healthcare (3/29, Dickson, Subscription Publication) reports “CMS has finalized a rule that provides states and plans no flexibility in meeting requirements to provide Medicaid enrollees and children the same level of benefits for mental health or substance-abuse treatment that they provide for medical and surgical care.” The rule was created to apply the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 to Medicaid managed-care plans and CHIP.

Related Links:

— “States, plans get no flexibility under final mental health parity rule,” Virgil Dickson, Modern Healthcare, March 29, 2016.

Modern Healthcare (3/29, Dickson, Subscription Publication) reports “CMS has finalized a rule that provides states and plans no flexibility in meeting requirements to provide Medicaid enrollees and children the same level of benefits for mental health or substance-abuse treatment that they provide for medical and surgical care.” The rule was created to apply the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 to Medicaid managed-care plans and CHIP.
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HealthDay (3/25, Pallarito) reported that research suggests kids “with severe psychiatric problems often have lengthy waits before they’re transferred from a hospital emergency department to a psychiatric hospital due to insurance companies’ ‘prior authorization’ requirements.” Investigators looked at data on more than 200 patients. The researchers found that “mental health workers at one Rhode Island hospital spent an average of an hour on the telephone seeking insurance companies’ approval.” However, insurers eventually approved all of the admissions, which “suggests that prior authorization appears to serve ‘more as an administrative hurdle,’ the study authors wrote.”
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The AP (3/25, Pane, Swanson) reported that 62% of Americans “said that at least one type of substance use was a serious problem in their communities,” while 43% “said they have a relative or close friend with substance abuse issues,” according to a survey by the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research at the University of Chicago. The AP described the survey results as demonstrating “a feeling that drugs are a pervasive problem, with many seeing friends or relatives ravaged by drugs and believing that treatment options need to be improved for addicts while punishment needs to be fierce for dealers.”

Related Links:

— “AP-NORC POLL: MOST AMERICANS SEE DRUGS AS A BIG PROBLEM,” Lisa marie Pane and Emily Swanson, Associated Press, March 25, 2016.