Posted on October 21, 2018
Salon
In an op-ed, Mary Giliberti, CEO of NAMI, takes issue with short-term, limited-duration insurance (STLDI) plans that do not cover mental health treatment and medications. On October 1, a rule went into effect that would allow insurance companies to expand the sale of these dangerous, virtually unregulated STLDI plans. This rule threatens to undermine consumer protections for people with mental illness and/or pre-existing conditions and will turn back the clock to a time when those individuals were excluded from lifesaving care.
READ MOREPosted on October 18, 2018
STAT
An opinion piece that calls for new ways to give health care workers real-time insights into the needs of psychiatric patients. Also the need to consider better ways to “triage” psychiatric patients to more appropriate caregivers after they’re admitted to the emergency room. The piece states that the better able we are to match patients with the appropriate resources outside of the emergency department, the better off our health system and our patients will be.
READ MOREPosted on October 17, 2018
Associated Press
Discusses the reforms that Virginia State Senator Creigh Deeds has pushed for since his son's death including a law requiring mental-health patients to be transported to a state hospital if space isn't found in a public or private facility. The state has also created a real-time psychiatric bed registry to help mental-health workers find spaces in their region. The Virginia Department of Behavioral Health has also committed to holding annual seminars to help mental-health workers.
READ MOREPosted on October 15, 2018
NPR
Discusses a recent report from the Lancet Commission on Global Mental Health. The report calls for more reliance on community health workers, greater attention to stigma, a broader definition of mental illness to include mental health, a search for ways to create resilience in currently healthy people and the use of technology tools for diagnosis and therapy. The Commission notes the availability of funding is "alarmingly low," citing a comparison between how much was spent on other diseases in 2013 and how much was spent on mental illnesses.
READ MOREPosted on October 9, 2018
Reuters
Every country in the world is facing and failing to tackle a mental health crisis, from epidemics of anxiety and depression to conditions caused by violence and trauma. A commission report by a team of 28 global experts assembled by the Lancet medical journal says there is a “collective failure to respond to this global health crisis” which “results in monumental loss of human capabilities and avoidable suffering.” The burden of mental ill-health is rising everywhere, says the Lancet Commission, in spite of advances in the understanding of the causes and options for treatment.
READ MOREPosted on October 5, 2018
Modern Healthcare
Discusses that the heart of the problem with mental health parity has been a lack of consistency in the oversight and enforcement on the part of federal and state regulators to get insurers to comply with existing parity laws. Some of those barriers to treatment have included placing stricter limits on the number of inpatient and outpatient mental health visits, separate prior authorization requirements than for medical care services, and separate deductibles and copays.
READ MOREPosted on October 4, 2018
Washington Post
Discusses the 10th anniversary of the Mental Health Parity bill and the release of an analysis that found 32 states did not ensure equal coverage for behavioral health. The report gave each state a letter grade on questions like whether an insurer requires a patient to pay a separate deductible or higher co-pays for behavioral health or sets limits on how many times they can see a behavioral health provider.
READ MOREPosted on October 3, 2018
San Francisco Chronicle
Two years after voters approved billions of dollars to fund low-income homes around California, affordable-housing advocates are upping the ante with two statewide bond measures on the Nov. 6 ballot to raise a record-breaking $6 billion for housing for struggling families, veterans and severely mentally ill people. If they pass, the two measures would generate the most money ever approved by statewide voters for affordable and supportive housing in California.
READ MOREPosted on September 27, 2018
Real Simple
In section 4: Health stigmas are melting away, Katrina Gay, National Director, Strategic Partnerships discusses eliminating stigma and the impact that celebrity posts about mental health struggles have on the increased calls to the NAMI HelpLine.
READ MOREPosted on September 25, 2018
ABC News
Discusses a new requirement is part of a law rushed through the state legislature after the February shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. On registration forms for new students, the state’s school districts now must ask whether a child has ever been referred for mental health services.
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NAMI HelpLine is available M-F, 10 a.m. – 10 p.m. ET. Call 800-950-6264,
text “helpline” to 62640, or chat online. In a crisis, call or text 988 (24/7).