The AP (11/19, Ehrmann) reports, “New safety standards aimed at limiting suicide risks have led to overhauls inside hospitals around the country, with psychiatric facilities and wards removing bathroom doors, stripping artwork from walls and requiring patients to wear paper gowns instead of their own clothes,” changes that “have forced costly renovations and caused a backlash, with some critics contending they’ve made hospital rooms feel more like jail cells.” American Psychiatric Association President Bruce Schwartz, MD, said, “We’re buying the same furniture and plumbing fixtures as prisons and jails,” measures that are “creating harsher environments in psychiatric facilities,” according to the AP. The AP adds that the current “length of stay for psychiatric patients at a psychiatric facility is seven to 10 days, according to the APA.”

Related Links:

— “Hospital psychiatric wards now feel like prisons, some say, “Chris Ehrmann, AP, November 19, 2019

Healio (11/19, Gramigna) reports research appears to underscore “the significantly higher costs for privately insured adult patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder [MDD] and suicide ideation/attempt than adults without MDD.” Investigators arrived at this conclusion after examining data on “2,061 patients aged 18 to 64 years with MDD and suicide ideation/attempt using Optum Health Care Solutions database of privately insured patients.” The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy – AMCP Nexus 2019.

Related Links:

— “Patients with MDD and suicide ideation/attempt experience significant health care costs, “Joe Gramigna, Healio, November 19, 2019

Newsweek (11/18, Gander) reports, “Two thirds of parents” surveyed “in the U.S. say they feel there are barriers to them recognizing their child has depression.” In the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health, 40 percent “of the nationally representative sample of 819 parents, who lived with a child aged between 0-18 years old…said they might find it hard to tell normal changes in moods from symptoms of the mental illness.” Thirty percent “said children were good hiding their feelings.”

Related Links:

— “Two Thirds Of Parents Say Barriers Like Mood Swings Could Make It Hard To Spot Depression In Their Kids, “Kashmira Gander, Newsweek, November 18, 2019

Psychiatric News (11/18) reports, “Women with schizophrenia are only half as likely as women in the general population to receive mammograms,” researchers concluded in an 11-study meta-analysis, the findings of which were published online Nov. 14 in Psychiatric Services, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

Related Links:

— “Many Women With Schizophrenia Do Not Receive Mammograms, Meta-Analysis Suggests, Psychiatric News, November 18, 2019

“Fewer” physicians “would have to wait for permission to prescribe addiction treatment” medications “under new, bipartisan legislation being unveiled this week by two lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee,” STAT (11/18, Facher) reports. The new bill, as written by Representatives Paul Tonko (D-NY) and David McKinley (R-WV), would ban “the practice of ‘prior authorization,’ in which insurers require doctors to seek approval before they can proceed with a prescription or procedure,” in state “Medicaid programs for addiction treatment medicines like buprenorphine.” The measure “comes amid part of a broader movement to expand addiction treatment as the overdose crisis continues to claim roughly 70,000 American lives each year.” STAT adds, “In a 2017 survey conducted by the American Medical Association, 64% of physicians reported waiting at least a day for authorization to prescribe addiction” medications.

Related Links:

— “A new bill would let more doctors prescribe addiction treatments without waiting for insurers’ permission, ” Lev Facher, STAT, November 18, 2019