Author: Scott Welch
Nevada’s lack of state-supported services for child mental health issues has been described as a “crisis” — underscored by a federal investigation last year revealing that the state’s lack of adequate treatment and services to children and youth with behavioral health disabilities likely violated federal law.
The bill, passed Thursday in California’s senate and assembly, AB-112, would establish a Distressed Hospital Loan Program through Jan. 1, 2032. The program would provide interest-free loans to nonprofit and public hospitals “in significant financial distress,” as well as to “governmental entities representing a closed hospital to prevent the closure or facilitate the reopening of a closed hospital.”
After a big drop off in health care spending during the early months of the COVID pandemic, health care spending bounced back in 2021, a new report has found. The study from the Health Care Cost Institute looked at data from 2021 and before, and found that although utilization of health care dropped in 2020 to the lowest rate seen in 12 years, it rebounded by 2021.
COVID-19 deaths trailed those caused by heart disease, cancer and injuries such as drug overdoses, motor vehicle fatalities and shootings. In 2020 and 2021, only heart disease and cancer were ahead of the coronavirus.
In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed and the Legislature approved a tax penalty on Californians without health insurance. That money was supposed to be used to lower costs for those insured through Covered California, but that has only happened once.
Spring heralds the start of rate review season: that time of year when state departments of insurance assess health insurers’ proposed rates for the next year and determine whether their plans comply with federal and state laws. Many state insurance departments now have a new responsibility as part of that process
The Drug Enforcement Administration has asked the White House for more time to finalize draft rules that proposed reinstating stricter limits requiring doctors to evaluate patients in-person before prescribing certain drugs — like Adderall and opioid use disorder treatment — via telehealth. Driving the news: DEA administrator Anne Milgram said on Wednesday that temporarily keeping the pandemic-era flexibilities in place would allow ...
The best part of remote work, from a mental health perspective, may be the commute. An hourlong slog to and from work pleases no one, and it is perhaps the largest negative associated with the nation’s gradual return to the office as the pandemic wanes. Nearly 30 percent of all work remains remote in the United States, ...
Medical experts urged Congress to hold insurance companies accountable for inaccurate medical directories that can hamper access for patients seeking mental health treatments. The problem, referred to as a “ghost network,” occurs when health insurance providers ostensibly provide coverage, but direct customers to nonexistent or unavailable doctors and providers. “In my view, it’s a breach ...
The popularity and utility of telehealth has made it a more common form of healthcare delivery since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and telepsychiatry is one of the most used applications for the remote care technology. But the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General has found that an estimated $580 million ...