Healio (12/8, Bascom) reports “a joint letter from six major medical organizations” including the American Psychiatric Association “calls on Congress to ensure patients can access affordable, quality health care.” The groups highlighted issues surrounding Medicare, mental health, telehealth, among others. The article adds, “According to the organizations, these issues ‘are of great concern for all patients, especially those with serious health conditions for whom delays in care are most dangerous.’” They also can “affect physicians, being ‘particularly burdensome for smaller physician practices that may not have the staff or structure to address the additional administrative work, potentially impeding access to care in underserved areas with clinician workforce shortages.’”

Related Links:

— “Top medical groups ask Congress to prioritize Medicare payments, mental health and more “Emma Bascom, Healio, December 8, 2022

The Los Angeles Times (12/8, Curwen) reports, “The California Policy Lab at UCLA counts just over 4,500 people living on the streets of” Los Angeles County “who have a psychotic disorder like schizophrenia, and that number includes only those who have received outreach services.” The article profiles a man named Anthony who, “since 2013…has been detained, hospitalized and confined at least five times.” While Anthony’s “family tried to intervene and manage his symptoms…the volatile nature of his condition and the cost of treatment made it impossible.” The article recounts Anthony’s lifelong and current experiences with the county’s “badly broken” mental healthcare system.

Related Links:

— “The Los Angeles Times, December 8, 2022

Healio (12/7, Rhoades) reports, “A driver training software program reduced the frequency of long glances from the roadway among adolescents with” attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD), “compared with a control training program,” investigators concluded in a study that randomized “152 adolescents aged 16 to 19 years with” AD/HD “to either the FOCAL+ intervention…or a modified conventional driver’s training program, which served as the control group.” The findings were published online Dec. 1 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Related Links:

— “Driver training software program associated with fewer distractions in ADHD youth “Andrew Rhoades, Healio, December 7, 2022

mHealth Intelligence (12/7, Melchionna) reports “America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) described survey results indicating that Americans value the convenience associated with telehealth, with 69 percent saying they prefer it over in-person care for this reason.” Among the “survey respondents who were commercially insured, 40 percent claimed to have used telehealth within a year prior, and 53 percent claimed to have used it between two and five times within a year prior.” Roughly “69 percent of commercially insured telehealth users said they used telehealth due to the associated high level of convenience compared to in-person care, 78 percent stated that telehealth made the process of seeking out healthcare easier, and 85 percent said there is an adequate number of [healthcare professionals] available via telehealth for their subjective needs.”

Related Links:

— “Majority of Americans Value the Convenience Associated with Telehealth ” Mark Melchionna, mHealth Intelligence, December , 2022

Medscape (12/7, Anderson, Subscription Publication) reports, “About 21% of teens newly diagnosed with epilepsy experience suicidal ideation, and the percentage jumps to 31% within 3 years,” according to research presented at the 2022 American Epilepsy Society Annual Meeting. The article adds, “From a cohort of over 400 participants, researchers identified 67 patients aged 11-17 years who were enrolled within 4 months of starting treatment for focal epilepsy.” The team “found that more than 1 in 5 (20.9%) teens endorsed any lifetime SI.”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)