May 7 is National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day
To honor National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day today, NABH President and CEO Shawn Coughlin published a
LinkedIn Pulse article about the critical role that residential treatment plays in youth behavioral healthcare.
The article highlights
Residential Treatment: A Vital Component of the Behavioral Healthcare Continuum, the white paper that NABH released in April. Please click
here to visit our Youth Services webpage to download the paper and access shareable social media messages, especially during Mental Health Month throughout May.
Also for Mental Health Month, the National Association of Medicaid Directors (NAMD) this week released fact sheets to promote the role that Medicaid programs play in ensuring access to mental health and addiction treatment.
The first fact
sheet shows how Medicaid supports crisis support systems, and the second
resource highlights opportunities for Medicaid programs to provide addiction treatment.
Registration Now Open for the NABH 2021 Annual Meeting!
Registration is open for the NABH 2021 Annual Meeting from Wednesday, Oct. 6 – Friday, Oct. 8, 2021 at the Mandarin Oriental Washington, DC.
We hope you join us as we recognize our meeting theme,
Expanding Access: Right Care. Right Setting. Right Time. Please visit our Annual Meeting
webpage to register for the meeting and to reserve your hotel room.
We look forward to seeing you in Washington!
NABH Submits Comments to HHS on HIPAA Privacy Rules
NABH this week sent
comments to the U.S. Health and Human Services Department’s (HHS) Office of Civil Rights (OCR) about the office’s proposed rule, “Proposed Modifications to the HIPAA Privacy Rule to Support, and Remove Barriers to, Coordinated Care and Individual Engagement.”
HHS released the proposed rule in January, and the Biden administration’s freeze on certain regulations issued during the prior administration did not apply to this one.
The letter includes sections about overlap among
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), interoperability, and 42 CFR Part 2 regulations; modifications to the right to inspect and obtain copies of protected health information; information disclosure to third parties; care coordination and case management; standards for disclosing information when in an individual’s interest or to prevent harm; and notices of privacy practices.
“As Covid-19 continues to have a significant impact on behavioral health, mental health and addiction treatment providers must remain focused on improving access to care,” NABH President and CEO Shawn Coughlin wrote in the letter. “They continue to struggle with the new demands imposed by social distancing and precautions they must take to prevent Covid-19 infection. Healthcare staff and providers were already greatly strained by the ongoing stress and demands created by this pandemic,” he continued. “Moreover, behavioral healthcare providers and HIT vendors are still working to implement the new interoperability standards as they continue to face staffing shortages,” he wrote, adding that NABH urges OCR to delay the deadline of this and any additional regulatory changes such as those in the proposed rule.
Patients with Mental Health Conditions in EDs During Pandemic More Likely to Require Admission
New
research from
JAMA shows that patients with mental health (MH) conditions presenting for emergency department (ED) visits since the onset of the pandemic have been more likely to require admission and have had longer admissions.
“The COVID-19 pandemic continues to place novel stressors on the provision of pediatric MH care,” the article noted. “Our findings may reflect challenges in disposition to definitive MH care and may suggest a scarcity of MH treatment resources.”
The researchers went on to write that their limitations in the study include an inability to account for the complexity of presenting MH conditions and the limited generalizability to non-children’s hospitals. Still, they continued, the findings of the cross-sectional study underscore the need for increased pediatric MH services.”
HRSA to Host Provider Webcast on Covid-19 Coverage Assistance Fund on May 12
HHS’ Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has announced a new program that covers the costs of administering Covid-19 vaccines to patients enrolled in health plans that either do not cover vaccination fees or cover them with patient cost-sharing.
HRSA will host an informational webcast for providers to present an overview of its Coverage Assistance Fund on Wednesday, May 12 at 2 p.m. ET.
Click
here to learn more and register.
Fact of the Week
Nearly one in five adults between the ages of 50 and 80 said their overall mental health has gotten worse since the pandemic began in March 2020, and an equal percentage said their sleep suffered in that time too, according to a new aging
study from the University of Michigan.
For questions or comments about this CEO Update, please contact Jessica Zigmond.