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F.D.A. Approves Narcan for Over-the-Counter Sales
Narcan, a prescription nasal spray that reverses opioid overdoses, can now be sold over the counter, the Food and Drug Administration said on Wednesday, authorizing a move long-sought by public health officials and treatment experts, who hope wider availability of the medicine will reduce the nation’s alarmingly high drug fatality rates. By late summer, over-the-counter Narcan, could be for sale in big-box chains, vending machines, supermarkets, convenience stores, gas stations and even online retailers. Read more here.
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New York State Department of Health Encourages New Yorkers to Prepare for Public Health Insurance Renewals
The New York State Department of Health recently announced that beginning this spring and continuing through spring 2024, more than 9 million New Yorkers enrolled in Medicaid, Child Health Plus and the Essential Plan will need to renew their health insurance. Enrollees in these public health insurance programs have not had to renew their coverage since early 2020 due to the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) continuous coverage requirements. However, the December 2022 federal Consolidated Appropriations Act included new rules ending the continuous coverage requirements starting Spring 2023. These new federal rules now require states, including New York State to begin redetermining eligibility for public program enrollees in the Spring of 2023. Read more here.
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‘The Stakes Couldn’t Be Higher’: How DEA’s Proposal Will Affect Telehealth Controlled Substance Prescribing
Like many startup founders, Zack Gray’s reason for creating his company was personal. He founded Ophelia — a digital health startup that provides prescriptions to manage opioid addiction via telehealth — in 2019 after losing his girlfriend to an overdose from drugs meant to treat her accidental opioid addiction. For a number of reasons, she had to turn to the black market to get buprenorphine and suboxone to treat her addiction. These reasons included convenience, stigma, her inability to take time off work and the fact that she was a private person. She ended up spending thousands of dollars per month on these treatments in an effort to get better. But self-treatment without guidance from a medical professional can be dangerous. Read more here.
Related: A Complex Regulatory Landscape Emerges for Telemedicine
DEA Faces Tsunami of Criticism In Comments on Proposed Telehealth-Controlled Substances Rules
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County Officials Discuss Harm Reduction as a Path Forward Through the Overdose Epidemic
In 2021, over 100,000 people died from drug overdose – more than any year in American history. At NACo’s 2023 Legislative Conference, county officials discussed harm reduction as a path forward through the opioid epidemic. Harm reduction is both a large scale and individual approach to serving people with substance use disorder (SUD) that aims to minimize negative health outcomes for people who are underserved by the formal treatment system. Harm reduction strategies range from low-barrier access to sterile supplies for safer substance use (a core function of syringe services programs, or SSPs), same day access to medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD), to helping people access services and resources that meet their individual hierarchy of needs. Read more here.
Related: Overdose expert: Allow supervised injection sites
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Newly Available Test Strips Can Detect Lethal ‘Tranq’ in Drug Supply
Public health workers will soon have a new tool at their disposal to thwart a spreading danger to users of illicit drugs: xylazine test strips. The new testing kits will allow health departments, grassroots harm-reduction groups, and individual drug users to test substances for the presence of xylazine, a sedative often referred to as “tranq.” The toxin is increasingly common in the U.S. illicit-drug supply — especially in the Philadelphia area, but increasingly in other cities, too. Xylazine, which is typically used as a sedative in veterinary settings, can cause people to stop breathing, and also often causes severe skin wounds when injected. Read more here.
Related: Hidden Fentanyl Can Kill. Test Strips Can Help Make Drug Use Safer.
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As 988 Crisis Line Sees More Use, States Debate How to Pay for It
Almost everyone agrees that putting money behind the national suicide and crisis hotline is a good thing.
But not everyone thinks a new phone tax is the best way to pay for it. Since the crisis line’s easy-to-remember 988 number launched last July, its use has increased significantly. The lifeline had 404,194 calls, chats and texts in February alone, an increase of 161,678 contacts over February 2022. Calls answered increased by 48%, chats answered by 247% and texts by 1,599%. (Some calls went unanswered, either because a caller hung up or there was a technical service interruption.) Read more here.
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Hospitals Are Increasingly Crowded With Kids Who Tried to Harm Themselves, Study Finds
The portion of American hospital beds occupied by children with suicidal or self-harming behavior has soared over the course of a decade, a large study of admissions to acute care hospitals shows. An analysis of 4,767,840 pediatric hospitalizations by researchers at Dartmouth, published on Tuesday in the medical journal JAMA, found that between 2009 and 2019, mental health hospitalizations increased by 25.8 percent and cost $1.37 billion. The study did not include psychiatric hospitals, or reflect the years of the coronavirus pandemic, suggesting that it is a considerable undercount. Read more here.
Related: Kids' Mental Health Hospitalizations Surged Over Past Decade
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Brief: Supporting Improved Responses to People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
Through a partnership with The Arc’s National Center on Criminal Justice and Disability and The Council of State Governments Justice Center, four Justice and Mental Health Collaboration grant programs received technical assistance and support to improve their responses to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Based on this assistance, four overarching themes emerged that can be used to guide other programs in their efforts to enhance responses to this population. This brief highlights those themes and gives an overview of each grantee’s program, including the work they have done with the help of this technical assistance.
Related: NYSOFA presents new resource guide to help older adults caring for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities
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How Value-Based Care Could Transform Serious Mental Illness Treatment
It’s no secret that patients with serious mental illnesses (SMIs) are costly to care for and have significantly worse outcomes than their peers. But value-based care models could enable providers to get creative in caring for these patients, leading to better outcomes and lower costs. Specifically, the value-focused model could allow providers to use wrap-around services that address social determinants of health and focus on whole-person wellbeing. California-based Amae is looking to treat SMI by focusing on patients’ physical, psycho mental, and societal and community wellness. Read more here.
Related: ‘It’s Extremely Difficult’: Payvider Models Demonstrate How Far Behavioral Health Integration Challenges Go
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Shifting the Power Balance: Creating Health System Accountability through Trusted Community Partnerships
Health care systems across the U.S. are increasingly focused on opportunities to achieve greater health equity. Cultivating meaningful relationships with their surrounding communities and involving community members in program and policy decision-making is integral for health systems to offer equitable care. By prioritizing collaborative relationships with community partners, health systems can better understand community needs and work together to design more responsive approaches to reduce health disparities and drive better health outcomes. This report outlines practical approaches to guide health systems in more meaningfully involving community members and being more accountable to the communities they serve. The report summarizes key findings for developing health systems that are more accountable to communities and outlines practical considerations to guide health systems in shifting the power balance to involve community members in decision-making processes.
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Drug Court Enrollment Has Plummeted After Changes to Criminal Justice Laws
Justin Roti Roti polished off his drink of choice, a 1.75 liter bottle of Ten High whiskey. He left his friend’s home at around 2 a.m. that night three years ago. He soon saw flashing lights and pulled into a Burger King parking lot off Route 9 with a police car behind him. Roti Roti stepped out, put his hands up and acknowledged he had been drinking. He was intoxicated at twice the legal limit. Police charged him with a felony for driving while intoxicated, the second time he had been charged with drunk driving. When the case finally advanced over a year later — delayed by the pandemic — he was offered a choice: spend up to 3 years in prison or enter a drug court program. Read more here.
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UPCOMING EVENTS & TRAININGS
Medicaid Advantage Plus (MAP) Plan Overview for CORE Service Providers - Pre-recorded Webinar Now Available
Original webinar held on March 13, MCTAC
Prioritizing Goals Of Treatment In Patients Diagnosed With Bipolar I Disorder: Results From A US Patient Survey Using Best-Worst Scaling
March 30, 12 - 1 pm, PsychU
Innovative Strategies to Address SDOH: Lessons From North Carolina’s Healthy Opportunities Pilots
March 30, 2 - 3 pm, Manatt Health
Mental Health in Communities of Color Symposium: Breaking the Stigma & Silence and Prioritizing Needs
March 31, 9 am - 2 pm
Changes & Updates regarding the Serious Emotional Disturbance population HCBS Level of Care Determination
April 4, 2 - 3:30 pm, OMH
Health Access and SDOH: Mobile Outreach for the Unsheltered Homeless
April 5, 3 - 4:30 pm, Corporation for Supportive Housing
Linking Neural Circuits To Dysfunction In Schizophrenia
April 6, 12 - 1 pm, PsychU
Using the PSYCKES Clinical Summary
April 6, 1 - 2:30 pm, OMH
Changes & Updates regarding the Medically Fragile population HCBS Level of Care Determination
April 6, 1 - 2:30 pm, OMH
Medicaid Authority and Opportunity to Build New Programs for Justice-Involved Individuals
April 6, 2 - 3 pm, Health Management Associates
Reducing Jail Populations: Lowering Recidivism through Jail- & Community-Based Treatment & Services
April 6, 2 - 3 pm, NACo
Sustainable Financing Approaches for Medicaid Managed Care Organizations to Address Health-Related Social Needs
April 6, 4 - 5 pm, Center for Health Care Strategies
PSYCKES for County Local Government Units
April 11, 10 - 11 am, OMH
Peer Support Office Hour/Q&A Session
April 11, 2 - 3 pm, National Council for Mental Wellbeing
Ending the PHE: Implications for Counties
April 11, 3 - 4 pm, NACo
Behavioral Health Parity Training for Service Providers
April 13, 12 - 1:30 pm, NYCDHMH
COD Series: Criminal Justice Involved Peer Support Part 2
April 13, 1 - 2:30 pm, Healthy Capital District
Understanding the Expanded Risk-Need-Responsivity Model, Supervision, Programming, and Dosage
April 13, 2 - 3:30 pm, CSG Justice Center
2023 Justice Center Summit
April 18 - 19, 25 - 26 - Event Flyer
Focusing on Reentry Housing and Family Engagement in Collaborative, Comprehensive Case Plans
April 18, 3 - 4 pm, CSG Justice Center
Considerations for Determining HCBS Eligibility for the SED Target Populations
April 19, 10 - 11:30 am, OMH
Using PSYCKES Quality Indicator Reports
April 19, 11 am - 12 pm, OMH
Housing Supports for Older Adults Experiencing Homelessness
April 19, 2 - 3 pm, HHRC
Utilizing Community Health Workers for SDOH Screening and Housing Navigation
April 19, 3 - 4 pm, Corporation for Supportive Housing
Leveraging Telehealth to Improve Access & Reach in Rural Integrated Care
April 20, 2 - 3:30 pm, National Council for Mental Wellbeing
PSYCKES Mobile App for iPhones & iPads
April 25, 10 - 11 am, OMH
Behavioral Health Parity 101
April 27, 12 - 1:30 pm, NYCDHMH
Harm Reduction Office Hours with Providers
April 27, 2 - 3:30 pm, OASAS
PSYCKES for BHCCs and Other Networks
May 3, 1 - 2 pm, OMH
PSYCKES for Health Homes and Care Management Agencies
May 9, 10 - 11:30 am, OMH
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CLMHD CALENDAR
APRIL
Executive Committee Meeting
April 5: 8 - 9 am
Developmental Disabilities Committee Meeting
April 6: 1 - 2:30 pm
LGU Clinic Operators Call
April 11: 10 - 11:30 am
Addiction Services & Recovery Committee Meeting
April 13: 11 am - 12 pm
Mental Health Committee Meeting
April 13: 3 - 4 pm
Children & Families Committee Meeting
April 18: 11:30 am - 1 pm
Membership Call
April 19: 9 - 10:30 am
Mentoring Session: Local Services Planning
April 20: 1 - 3 pm
Deputy DCS Call
April 25: 10 - 11 am
Save the Date: CLMHD Spring Full Membership Meeting - May 11-12 in Saratoga Springs
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