In continuing coverage, the Hartford (CT) Courant (3/14, Sturdevant) “Insurance Capital” blog reported, “Several doctor organizations are criticizing Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Connecticut for not covering psychotherapy in some cases after a Jan. 1 change in medical-billing codes.” Insurer “Anthem has responded to changes in medical-billing codes for psychiatry by covering only visits for an evaluation or management of medical issues, and not psychotherapy as a separate equal category when provided during the same visit, according to the Connecticut Psychiatric Society, the American Psychiatric Association and the Connecticut State Medical Society.” The blog quoted APA CEO James H. Scully, Jr., MD, who called Anthem’s practices “unethical and illegal,” and who said, “We worked very hard to enact mental health parity laws, and it is now clear that Anthem is seeking a way to avoid compliance.”

Related Links:

— “Doctors: Anthem Not Paying For Psychotherapy In Some Cases, “MSturdevant, Hartford Courant, March 14, 2013.

On its website, WUSA-TV Washington (DC) Washington (3/14) reported, “The American Psychiatric Association (APA) no longer classifies sexual masochism, fetishism, transvestism, and sadism as mental disorders, according to The Daily Mail.” Now, “in order for something to be classified as a disorder, a person must ‘feel personal distress about their interest.’ These sexual interests will be renamed in an upcoming edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).”

Related Links:

— “APA: Happy People Who Have Sexual Fetishes No Longer Have Mental Disorder,CBS DC, March 14, 2013.

The Cincinnati (OH) Enquirer (3/15, Johnston) reports, “The world’s largest collection of suicide notes, more than 1,300 in all, is at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.” Researchers there “are using advanced computer technology to analyze the language in the notes and gain a deeper understanding of the thoughts of the people who wrote them. The goal is to create a tool, perhaps within two years, that can help mental health workers assess the likelihood a person will attempt suicide.”

Related Links:

— “Saving lives with world’s largest suicide-note collection, “John Johnston, Cincinnati.com, March 15, 2013.

The AP (3/14, Press) reports, “Young men who have served in the British military are about three times more likely than civilians to have committed a violent offense,” according to a study published online March 15 in The Lancet. One “key predictor was violent behavior before enlisting. Combat duty also raised the risk, as did witnessing traumatic events during deployment or misusing alcohol afterward,” the article notes.

Reuters (3/15, Kelland) reports that researchers arrived at these conclusions after having studied data on some 14,000 UK soldiers who were deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq and then cross-checking that data against data derived from criminal records.

BBC News (3/15, Gallagher) reports, “Overall criminal activity was slightly lower in military personnel than in people of the same age in the wider population.” But, “the researchers found violent offending was higher within members of the armed services and there was a ‘stark’ difference in men under 30 – 20.6% of the 2,728 young men followed had committed a violent offence, compared with 6.7% of young mven outside the military.” The majority of “violent offences were assaults.”

Related Links:

— “Study finds British soldiers, vets who had combat duty more likely to commit violent crimes, “Associated Press, The Washington Post, March 14, 2013.

Medwire (3/14, Piper) reports, “Criminal justice problems are relatively common among patients with bipolar disorder [BD], but researchers have identified an array of risk factors that they believe will provide guidance when evaluating patients and identifying preventive strategies,” according to research published online March 7 in the Journal of Affective Disorders. “The factors were identified based on 34,508 wave 2 respondents of the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) with valid responses to the mania section.” Notably, “a range of historical, clinical, and contextual factors were found to increase the risk for criminal involvement, but two multivariate analyses indicated the risk was particularly high for patients who were unemployed (odds ratio [OR]=3.89-4.27), of non-White race (OR=3.68-3.93), who had previously been detained as juveniles (OR=4.25-5.17), had a prior arrest while manic or using drugs (OR=3.28-3.62), used illicit drugs in the past year (OR=3.31-3.98), or showed both social and occupational impairment (OR=4.75-4.80).”

Related Links:

— “Integrated approach needed for reducing crime in bipolar disorder patients, “Lucy Piper, Medwire News, March 14, 2013.