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NABH Submits FY 2020 IPF PPS Rule Comments to CMS NABH this week urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) not to include any new measures in the Inpatient Psychiatric Facility Quality Reporting (IPFQR) program, but instead work with the behavioral healthcare provider community to improve existing measures. That was the broad message in NABH’s comment letter to CMS about the agency’s proposed fiscal year (FY) 2020 inpatient psychiatric facility prospective payment system (IPF PPS) rule. Commenting on CMS’ proposal to develop a new measure for a standardized patient perception of care, NABH President and CEO Mark Covall explained that the majority of NABH members participating in the IPFQR program use some version of a patient perception of care measure; however, there is not one single measure that all providers or a majority of providers use. “Therefore, we have strong concerns that CMS will make it mandatory for behavioral healthcare providers to adopt something such as the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Provider and Systems (HCAHPS) survey,” Covall wrote. NABH also recommended CMS work closely with the behavioral healthcare provider community to develop a safety-planning measure for patients who have suicidal ideation. Click here to read NABH’s letter. SAMHSA Releases The Behavioral Health Barometer, Volume Five The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has released volume five of The Behavioral Health Barometer, one of a series of national, regional, and state reports that offer a glimpse of behavioral health in the United States. “Behavioral Health Barometers for the nation, 10 regions, and all 50 states and the District of Columbia are published as part of SAMHSA’s behavioral health quality improvement approach,” Elinore McCance-Katz, M.D., Ph.D., assistant secretary for mental health and substance use at SAMHSA, wrote in the report’s foreword. “Most importantly, the Behavioral Health Barometers provide critical information in support of SAMHSA’s mission of reducing the impact of substance abuse and mental illness on America’s communities.” The 74-page report examines youth, young adult, and adult mental health and substance use as well as adult mental health and mental health service use. SAMHSA also included a special focus on the misuse of prescription pain relievers, heroin use, and medication assisted therapy for opioid addiction. AMA Passes Opioid Policies that Address Barriers to Effective Treatment The American Medical Association (AMA) has approved several opioid-related policies meant to shift the focus of pain treatment back on patients and away from what the association referred to as “arbitrary third-party controls.” Physicians accepted the resolutions at the Chicago-based association’s annual meeting last week. In a news release, the AMA said the measures take aim at barriers to treatment that state and federal authorities, insurers, pharmacy benefit management (PBM) companies, and national pharmacy chains have enacted. ““The barriers include tactics such as prior authorization and step therapy – which can delay treatment – and misguided laws and other policies setting hard thresholds for prescriptions,” the announcement said. One proposal recommends developing treatment plans based on individual needs, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach of hard thresholds. Another measure opposes pharmacies, PBMs, and insurers using “high prescriber lists,” without due process, to keep physicians from writing prescriptions for controlled substances and preventing patients from filling prescriptions at their pharmacy of choice. Opioid Crisis Increases Number of Organs Available for Transplant Taken together, America’s opioid crisis and organ shortage have led the nation’s surgeons to consider transplanting organs deemed less than “perfect” in an effort to expand the donor pool and save more lives, according to new research published in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery. Nader Moazami, M.D. of NYU Langone Health in New York and his colleagues evaluated trends in organ donation and transplants among drug overdose deaths using data from the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients between 2000 and 2017. They found that of the 15,904 isolated heart transplants from adult donors during this period, opioid overdoses (10.8 percent) were the fourth common cause of death, behind blunt injury (30.5 percent), hemorrhage/stroke (22.1 percent), and gunshot wound (18.3 percent). “The opioid epidemic has increased the proportion of hearts transplanted from overdose death donors (ODD),” Moazami said in a news release from the Society of Thoracic Surgeons. “One of the roles of the transplant community is to at least partially mitigate the tragedy of this exponentially growing problem by maximizing the utilization of organs from ODD.” JAMA Psychiatry Study Finds Fewer Psychiatrists Accepting Medicaid Patients Post Expansion Fewer psychiatrists are accepting Medicaid patients even as more patients have gained coverage under the federal insurance program, according to a recent research letter published in JAMA Psychiatry. Although Medicaid is the principal payer of behavioral health services in the United States, little is known about recent trends in psychiatrists’ acceptance of Medicaid patients, the letter said. For this analysis, researchers used data from the 2010-2015 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS), a nationally representative survey of physicians who were not federally employed, based in offices, and primarily engaged in patient care. The study found the number of psychiatrists accepting Medicaid patients fell to 35 percent between 2014-2015 from nearly 48 percent between 2010-2011. “This study was limited by the relatively small physician sample size in the NAMCS and only 2 years’ post expansion data in most expansion states,” the research letter said. “Furthermore, low Medicaid participation among primary care physicians has been attributed to low Medicaid physician fees, reimbursement delays, and administrative burden,” it added. “However, we lacked data to explore the relative importance of these potential factors in psychiatrists’ decision to accept Medicaid patients.” A Reuters story about the findings quoted the study’s co-author Adam Wilk, who said he suspects the nation’s shortage of psychiatrists is the reason why they haven’t expanded their capacity to accept Medicaid patients. “Market deficiencies allow psychiatrists to make more money by taking patients who have private insurance,” Wilk, an assistant professor of health policy and management at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, told Reuters. “In fact, there’s a rising trend among psychiatrists of opting out of insurance altogether.”  JAMA Pediatrics Study Suggests Sexting Associated with Sexual Behaviors and Mental Health Risk Factors in Adolescents A meta-analysis of 23 studies has found that adolescent sexting is significantly associated with sexual activity, multiple sexual partners, lack of contraception use, delinquent behavior, internalizing problems, and substance use. Published in JAMA Pediatrics, the analysis comprising 41,723 participants found the association between sexting and multiple sexual partners, drug use, smoking, and internalizing problems were stronger in younger compared with older adolescents. “Results of this study suggest that sexting is associated with various sexual behaviors and mental health risk factors,” the authors noted in the study. “Moving forward, education campaigns should focus on providing youth with comprehensive information about sexting and digital citizenship.” Justice Department Releases Grant Solicitation for Rural Communities to Address Opioid Crisis The U.S. Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) has announced the Rural Responses to the Opioid Epidemic Grant solicitation, which is intended to build local capacity, foster cross-sector collaboration, and support innovation to address the nation’s deadly opioid crisis. BJA is sponsoring the initiative with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the State Justice Institute and will select up to eight rural communities or regions for grant awards up to $750,000, each for a 24-month period. BJA has scheduled a webinar to discuss the grant application process for Wednesday, June 26 at 2:30 p.m. ET. Applications are due by Friday, July 26. National Consortium of Telehealth Resource Centers Announces Webinars on Telehealth for SUD The National Consortium of Telehealth Resource Centers will explore what type of substance use disorder services a community health center can offer via telehealth in a webinar next Friday, June 28 at 9 a.m. ET. Click here to register. For questions or comments about CEO Update, please contact Jessica Zigmond.