KFF Health News (7/25, DeGuzman) reports, “The Suicide and Crisis Lifeline’s 988 hotline marked its one-year milestone this month,” with “mental health experts” saying “the three-digit number made help more accessible than before.” The “huge increase of calls to 988 compared with those to the” old “1-800 number in just a year is likely linked to the simplicity of the three-digit code, said Adrienne Breidenstine, vice president of policy and communications at Behavioral Health System in Baltimore.” The hotline “does not use geolocation,” however, “meaning call centers don’t automatically receive information about callers’ locations,” and many older adults have a low awareness of the hotline and the services it offers.

Related Links:

— “A year with the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: What worked? What challenges lie ahead?,”Colleen DeGuzman, KFF Health News, July 25, 2023

CNN (7/25, McPhillips) reports, “At least 20 states have enacted policies restricting healthcare for transgender youth, and the loss of gender-affirming care clinics in those states has dramatically increased the average travel time to a” clinician, investigators concluded.

Healio (7/25, Monostra) reports, “Government-enacted restrictions have resulted in about half of U.S. children and adolescents aged 10 to 17 years living more than one hour from a clinic offering gender-confirming care,” investigators concluded in the findings of a research letter published in JAMA. The study identified “271 gender-confirming clinics…of which 25.8% were located in states with restrictions,” such as “Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.” What’s more, “an estimated 89,100 transgender adolescents live in those states, representing about 30% of all transgender youths in the U.S.”

Related Links:

— “State restrictions on gender-affirming care for children have doubled the average travel time to a provider in the US, study shows,” Deidre McPhillips, CNN, July 25, 2023

According to the AP (7/25, Megerian, Miller), on July 25, the Biden Administration “announced new rules meant to push insurance companies to increase their coverage of mental health treatments.” These “new regulations, which still need to go through a public comment period, would require insurers to study whether their customers have equal access to medical and mental health benefits and to take remedial action, if necessary.” Were the rules to be finalized, they “would force insurers to study patient outcomes to ensure the benefits are administered equally, taking into account their” clinician “network and reimbursement rates and whether prior authorization is required for care.”

Reuters (7/25, Holland) reports, “The administration…will release the text of a proposed rule change to the 2008 Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act,” that “would also provide specific examples that make clear that health plans cannot use more restrictive prior authorization, other medical management techniques or narrower networks that make it harder for people to access mental health and substance use disorder benefits.” The proposed rule change text “will be open to public comment for 60 days and administration officials said they expected it would go into effect sometime afterward.”

Related Links:

— “The Biden administration proposes new rules to push insurers to boost mental health coverage,” Zeke Miller and Chris Megerian, AP, July 25, 2023

Healio (7/24, Bascom) reports, “Replacing mayonnaise and margarine with olive oil may reduce the risk for mortality from dementia among adults in the United States,” researchers concluded after conducting “a study including 60,582 women and 31,801 men to evaluate the connections between olive oil intake and subsequent risk for dementia-related mortality, which they ascertained from death records.” The findings were presented at NUTRITION 2023. HealthDay (7/24, Norton) also covers the study.

Related Links:

— “Choosing olive oil over margarine and mayonnaise may reduce dementia mortality risk,”Emma Bascom, Healio , July 24, 2023

Healio (7/20, Weldon) reported, “Youth suicidality unexpectedly declined in the United States during school closures for COVID-19,” investigators concluded after studying “national data on 73,123 emergency department visits and hospitalizations for suicidality among children aged 10 to 12 and adolescents aged 13 to 18 years who were commercially insured from Jan. 1, 2016, to Dec. 31, 2021.” The findings were published online July 19 in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “Youth suicidality unexpectedly fell during school closures for COVID-19,”Rose Weldon, Healio , July 20, 2023