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Senate Reschedules Opioid Legislation Vote for Monday, Sept. 17 Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Wednesday delayed an expected vote on the Senate’s opioid package, citing the risk of Hurricane Florence as the reason why he canceled this week’s remaining votes. The Senate’s bill, the Opioid Crisis Response Act of 2018, is expected to pass. If it does, the Senate and House plan to quickly resolve the differences between their respective opioid bills in a conference committee. The House passed the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act in June. The House and Senate opioid packages share several Medicare-related and drug provisions, such as requiring the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to test a bundled payment model to expand Medicare coverage for opioid treatment programs, and improving providers’ ability to prescribe medication assisted therapy drugs by expanding physician authorization. But on Medicaid, the two packages differ greatly. For instance, the House-passed bill partially repeals Medicaid’s Institutions for Mental Diseases (IMD) exclusion; establishes a demonstration program to expand provider capacity for substance use disorder treatment; and ensures Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) coverage for substance use disorder services for children and pregnant women—none of which the Senate package offers. The Senate is expected to vote on its measure on Monday, Sept. 17. SAMHSA Releases 2017 National Survey on Drug Use and Health Report The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) this week released the 2017 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) Annual National Report, which summarizes key findings for national indicators of substance use and mental health among people aged 12 or older in the civilian, non-institutionalized population of the United States. According to the annual report, 30.5 million people aged 12 or older used an illicit drug in the past 30 days, which relates to about 1 in 9 Americans, or 11.2 percent. Meanwhile, an estimated 46.6 million adults aged 18 or older, or about 18.9 percent, had any mental illness in the past year, and about 11.2 million adults nationwide had a serious mental illness, which represents about 4.5 percent of all U.S. adults. Click here to access the annual report and detailed tables based on the survey’s results. The Joint Commission Releases First Data-Driven Estimate of Suicides in U.S. Hospitals About 49 to 65 hospital inpatient suicides occur in the United States each year, far fewer than a widely circulated estimate of about 1,500, according to new data published in The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety. The study, “Incidence and Method of Suicide in Hospitals in the United States,” analyzed national data sets that included the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) – Restricted Access Data for 2014-2015, and the Joint Commission’s Sentinel Event database from 2010–2017. According to the findings, about 49 to 65 hospital inpatient suicides occur each year in the United States. Of these, 75 percent to 80 percent were among psychiatric inpatients. Hanging accounted for more than 70 percent of suicides in both databases. About half of suicides occurred in the bathroom; one third occurred in the bedroom; and the remainder occurred in the closet. ““Hospitalization is intended to provide patients a safe, protected environment designed to heal and stabilize them during periods of crisis, and suicides that occur within a hospital are considered to be sentinel events,” Scott C. Williams, Psy.D., director of the Joint Commission’s research department and the study’s lead author, said in a news release about the findings. “The Joint Commission is improving its methods for analyzing inpatient suicides to collect more detailed information so we can provide better guidance on how hospitals can mitigate suicide risk more effectively.” CMS to Host Webinar on a Community Approach to Follow-Up Care CMS will host a webinar on Monday, Sept. 17 to highlight approaches for successful patient transitions from an inpatient psychiatric facility into the community. Titled “A Community Approach to Follow-Up Care,” the webinar will discuss Behavioral Health Charlotte’s strategies for successful patient transitions into the community, as well as community partnerships to optimize patient follow-up care and outcome metrics to track and improve transitions in case. The hourlong webinar is scheduled for 2 p.m. Eastern time. Click here to register.   Save the Date for the NABH 2019 Annual Meeting! Please save the date and plan to join us at the Mandarin Oriental Washington, D.C. fromMarch 18-20, 2019 for the 2019 NABH Annual Meeting. NABH will provide additional information in upcoming editions of CEO Update. For questions or comments about CEO Update, please contact Jessica Zigmond.