Healthcare Finance News (11/3, Morse) reports, “For the first time outside of the COVID-19 public health emergency, Medicare will pay for mental health visits furnished by Rural Health Clinics and Federally Qualified Health Centers via telecommunications technology, including audio-only telephone calls,” in addition to other actions announced by CMS “in the 2022 Physician Fee Schedule final rule released late Tuesday.” CMS “is eliminating geographic barriers and allowing patients at home to access telehealth services for diagnosis, evaluation and treatment of mental health disorders.”

Related Links:

— “Physician fee schedule final rule opens up telehealth access “Susan Morse, Healthcare Finance News, November 3, 2021

HealthDay (11/3) reports research indicates that “women are more reluctant to ask for deadline extensions at work than their male colleagues are, in part because they worry about being seen as incompetent.” The findings of the nine-study, 5,700-person research article were published online Nov. 1 in PNAS. Commenting on the findings, Ludmila De Faria, MD, chair, Committee on Women’s Mental Health, American Psychiatric Association, “said that working women often feel pressure to prove they are highly competent while also being seen as ‘nice.’” For that reason, “their anxieties around deadline extensions makes sense, said” Dr. De Faria, who had no involvement in the study.

Related Links:

— “Women Less Likely to Ask for More Time When Deadlines Loom “Amy Norton, HealthDay, November 3, 2021

Clinical Endocrinology News (11/2, Splete) reports, “Youth identifying as lesbian, gay, or bisexual were significantly less likely than were their peers to communicate with a physician or utilize health care in the past 12 months,” investigators concluded after analyzing “data from 4,256 participants in the third wave (10th grade) of adolescents in Healthy Passages, a longitudinal, observational cohort study of diverse public school students.” The study also revealed that “the most common conditions for which LGB youth did not seek care were sexually transmitted infections, contraception, and substance use.” The findings were published online in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “Lesbian, gay, bisexual youth miss out on health care “Heidi Splete, Clinical Endocrinology News, November 2, 2021

Psychiatric News (11/2) reports, “The frequency of schizophrenia diagnoses in U.S. nursing home residents with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias rose between 2011 and 2017,” with “Black nursing home residents” experiencing “a greater increase in the likelihood of being diagnosed with schizophrenia than white nursing home residents, even if they received care in the same nursing home,” investigators concluded after analyzing information from “the Minimum Data Set (captures information about diagnoses of psychiatric disorders and other conditions) and the Master Beneficiary Summary File (captures demographic information for residents in Medicare- and/or Medicaid-certified nursing homes).” The findings were published online Oct. 26 ahead of print in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Black Nursing Home Residents With Dementia More Likely to Be Diagnosed With Schizophrenia, Psychiatric News, November 2, 2021

Healio (11/2, Marabito) reports, “Patients with chronic pain receiving long-term opioid therapy who were assigned to cognitive behavioral therapy [CBT] reported reductions in pain and pain-related disability,” even though “opioid use by the patients did not decrease,” researchers concluded in a study that randomized “850 adult patients on long-term opioid therapy for chronic pain to receive usual care (n = 417) or a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) intervention (n = 433).” The findings were published online Nov. 2 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Related Links:

— “Cognitive behavioral therapy modestly reduces chronic pain in patients on opioids “Maria Marabito, Healio, November 2, 2021