MedPage Today (12/12, Firth) reports, “Patients with cocaine or opioid use disorder…had a higher risk of endocarditis if they also contracted COVID-19, a retrospective study showed.” Investigators found that “COVID-19 infection was associated with an increased risk of newly diagnosed cases of endocarditis among patients with opioid use disorder…and with cocaine use disorder…compared with matched controls who didn’t have COVID.” The findings were published in Molecular Psychiatry. For the study, the researchers “used the nationwide TriNet Analytics Network database to analyze 109 million electronic health records…from a range of healthcare organizations across all 50 states, including 736,502 people with opioid use disorder and 379,623 people with cocaine use disorder.”

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

Bloomberg Law (12/12, Pugh, Subscription Publication) reports, “A Biden administration proposal released Monday aims to increase access to health services, simplify and improve the selection process for marketplace health plans, and make it easier to enroll in marketplace coverage in 2024.” In addition, the 2024 Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters Proposed Rule seeks “to increase access to behavioral health-care options.”

Modern Healthcare (12/12, Tepper, Subscription Publication) also covers the story.

Related Links:

— “HHS Proposal Aims to Expand Access to Behavioral Health Care (1) “Tony Pugh, Bloomberg Law, December 12, 2022

Healio (12/12, Herpen) reports, “Among healthcare workers in England, prevalence estimates of PTSD and common mental disorders were markedly lower when assessed using diagnostic interviews compared with screening tools,” investigators concluded after conducting “a two-phase, cross-sectional study comprised of diagnostic interviews within a larger multisite longitudinal cohort of healthcare workers (n = 23,462) during the COVID-19 pandemic.” The findings were published online Dec. 8 in The Lancet Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Prevalence of PTSD, other mental disorders higher with screening tools than interviews “Robert Herpen, Healio, December 12, 2022

Healio (12/12) reports, “People with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia” (bvFTD) “were more likely to exhibit apathy and functional decline, even in the mildest stage of dementia, compared with patients with Alzheimer’s disease,” researchers concluded in a study that “included 866 individuals with a clinical diagnosis of bvFTD at baseline who were enrolled in the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center Uniform Data Set…between 2005 and 2019 and had one or more annual follow-ups.” The findings were published online in a research letter in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “Patients with frontotemporal dementia more likely to exhibit apathy, functional decline “Ken Downey Jr., Healio, December 12, 2022

USA Today (12/9, Weintraub) reported, “NFL players age nearly a decade faster than the general population and suffer from arthritis and high blood pressure as early as their 20s,” investigators concluded in a study that “compared survey results from 4,000 living former players with similar questions asked of the general public in government surveys.” The study matched players “with people of the same age, race and body mass index,” then compared the results, finding that former players were “almost 10 years ahead of the general population.” The findings were published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

HealthDay (12/9, Murez) also covered the study.

Related Links:

— “NFL players age faster than the rest of us. Harvard is researching what can be done. “Karen Weintraub, USA TODAY, December 9, 2022