Healthcare Finance News (8/18, Lagasse) reports, “Overall customer satisfaction with Medicare Advantage plans has increased this year, thanks largely to improvements in billing and payments, cost and provider choice.” However, according to the “J.D. Power 2022 U.S. Medicare Advantage Study, some concerning trends are brewing beneath the surface of those positive numbers.” Specifically, “a majority of Medicare Advantage plan members are saying they don’t have enough coverage for mental health and substance use disorder services.”

Related Links:

— “Medicare Advantage lacking for mental health coverage “Jeff Lagasse, Healthcare Finance News, August 18, 2022

Bloomberg Law (8/18, Subscription Publication) reports, “About $12.4 million in federal funding will go to grants for 99 new coalitions for the Drug-Free Communities Support Program…announced” White House Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Dr. Rahul Gupta. These “coalitions will provide education on illicit fentanyl and counterfeit pills as well as prescription drugs, marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol, the ONDCP said in a Thursday news release.”

Related Links:

— “White House to Fund $12.4 Million in Drug-Free Community Grants, Bloomberg Law, August 18, 2022

Medscape (8/18, Crist, Subscription Publication) reports, “Siblings of children with chronic health conditions could be at an increased risk for depression,” researchers concluded in a 34-study systematic review and meta-analysis, the findings of which were published online July 7 ahead of print in the Journal of Pediatrics.

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

mHealth Intelligence (8/17, Melchionna) reports, “While exploring methods for virtually treating older and underserved patients, a study…found that audio-only telehealth produced similar benefits and was not inferior to video-based telehealth.” For the study published in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences, “researchers gathered a diverse group of participants; 43% were Black, and 68% were women,” and “they also considered factors such as age and insurance status when drawing conclusions.”

Related Links:

— “Audio-Only Telehealth Effective in Treating Underserved Patients “Mark Melchionna, mHealth Intelligence, August 17, 2022

MedPage Today (8/17, George) reports, “Up to 2 years after infection, people who had COVID-19 continued to face increased risks of neurologic and psychiatric sequelae compared with people who had other respiratory infections, a retrospective study showed.” The “health records of nearly 1.3 million people…showed that risks of cognitive deficit (brain fog), dementia, psychotic disorders, and epilepsy or seizures were increased at 2 years for adults who had COVID, reported” researchers online in The Lancet Psychiatry. Also, “children who had COVID…were more likely to be diagnosed with neurologic and psychiatric sequelae than their matched counterparts, but their likelihood of most diagnoses was lower than that of adults.”

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)