As homelessness explodes across California, so does the number of expectant mothers on the streets. Street medicine doctors are getting paid more by Medicaid and offering some of those mothers-to-be a chance to overcome addiction and reverse chronic diseases so they can have healthy babies — and perhaps keep them.
Esta línea fue diseñada con la idea de que las personas que experimentan angustia emocional se sintieran más cómodas buscando ayuda capacitada sin tener que llamar al 911.
The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, a national hotline, reached its first-year milestone this month.
Efforts to improve addiction care in jails and prisons are underway across the country. But a rural Alabama county with one of the nation’s highest overdose rates shows how change is slow, while law enforcement officials continue to treat addiction as a crime rather than a medical condition.
As three years of pandemic stress accelerated an ongoing nationwide mental health crisis, peer respite programs diverted patients from overburdened emergency rooms, psychiatric institutions, and behavioral therapists. Now, more “respites” are opening.
A state Senate bill would extend workers’ compensation coverage of post-traumatic stress injuries for firefighters and police officers. But a separate bill to cover paramedics and EMTs is unlikely to be heard.
The recently ended legislative session was marked by Medicaid reimbursement hikes, abortion restrictions, anti-LGBTQ+ statutes, behavioral health spending, and workforce and insurance measures.
One of Montana’s largest mental health providers has ratcheted back services amid financial troubles, leaving a vacuum. State policymakers have promised more money to aid behavioral health care, but lasting change could be years out.
Doctors have no national standards on when to order urine tests to check whether adult ADHD patients are properly taking their prescription stimulants. Some patients are subjected to much more frequent testing than others.
A recent report detailing problems with Florida’s patchwork mental health system had reached conclusions nearly identical to those of a similar report from more than 20 years ago. The echoes between the findings are unmistakable. And Florida isn’t the only state struggling with the criminalization of mental illness, a lack of coordination between providers, and insufficient access to treatment.