Healthcare Finance News (3/8, Lagasse ) reported, “Through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the Biden administration has earmarked nearly $50 million for HRSA’s Rural Opioid Treatment and Recovery Initiative.” The investment “will support establishing and expanding comprehensive substance use disorder treatment and recovery services in rural areas, including by increasing access to medications for opioid use disorder such as buprenorphine.”

Related Links:

— “Feds launch $50M rural opioid treatment initiative,”Jeff Lagasse, Healthcare Finance News, March 8, 2024

Healio (3/7, Welsh) reports, “Opioid and teratogenic medication prescriptions decreased and prescriptions for medications for diabetes and mental health conditions increased among pregnant women after 2010 in the U.S., researchers reported” in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. According to the study, “the most prescribed medications in MarketScan data were ondansetron (16.8%), amoxicillin (13.5%) and azithromycin (12.4%), and the most prescribed medications in MAX/TAF data were nitrofurantoin (22.2%), acetaminophen (21.3%) and ondansetron (19.5%).” Additionally, “the most prescribed medications in NHANES were levothyroxine (5%), sertraline (2.9%) and insulin (2.9%).”

Related Links:

— “Changes in prescription medication use by pregnant women after 2010 in US,”Erin T. Welsh, Healio, March 7, 2024

STAT (3/7, Lee, Subscription Publication) reports, “Girls across the globe are hitting puberty earlier than ever before,” and “researchers aren’t sure why.” According to STAT, “Girls who undergo precocious puberty are also more likely to be victims of bullying during childhood, and they have a higher risk of depression, social anxiety, eating disorders, and substance misuse.” Additionally, “recent research has also demonstrated that precocious puberty has mental health effects that persist into adulthood, with young adults who went through early puberty more likely to experience depressive symptoms than those who matured at an average age.”

Related Links:

— “Girls are starting puberty earlier than ever. For some, that comes with major mental health risks,” Alexa Lee, STAT, March 7, 2024

The New York Times (3/7, Richtel ) reports, “Increasingly, doctor visits by adolescents and young adults involve mental health diagnoses, along with the prescription of psychiatric medications.” A new study published in JAMA Network Open “found that in 2019, 17 percent of outpatient doctor visits for patients ages 13 to 24 in the United States involved a behavioral or mental health condition, including anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, self-harm or other issues.” That result was up “sharply from 2006, when just 9 percent of doctor’s visits involved psychiatric illnesses.” Additionally, “in 2019, 22.4 percent of outpatient visits by the 13-24 age group involved the prescription of at least one psychiatric drug, up from 13 percent in 2006.”

Related Links:

— “The New York Times (requires login and subscription)

NBC News (3/6, Silva , Bendix ) reports, “Desperate patients around the country have been forced to choose between paying out of pocket for essential medications or forgoing them entirely as the aftermath of a cyberattack on a major health care company stretches into its third week.” Since Change Healthcare “detected the attack on” February 21, “pharmacies, doctors offices and patients say their lives and work have been upended due to widespread outages in systems commonly used for medical billing and insurance claims.” American Medical Association President Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, said, “Anything that requires interaction between health plans, a pharmacy, a facility, an office has been disrupted. … That has far-reaching implications, whether you’re on routine, standard medications, whether you rely on a rebate program from a pharmaceutical company, whether you’re just trying to get clearance to have routine elective surgery.”

Related Links:

— “Patients struggle to get lifesaving medication after cyberattack on a major health care company,”Daniella Silva and Aria Bendix, NBC News, March 6, 2024