Category: mental health

KFF Health News’ ‘What the Health?’: Another Try for Mental Health ‘Parity’

President Joe Biden is kicking off his reelection campaign in part by trying to finish a decades-long effort to establish parity in insurance benefits between mental and physical health. Meanwhile, House Republicans are working to add abortion and other contentious amendments to must-pass spending bills. Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico, Anna Edney of Bloomberg, and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join KFF Health News’ chief Washington correspondent, Julie Rovner, to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews KFF Health News’ Céline Gounder about her podcast “Epidemic.” The new season focuses on the successful public health effort to eradicate smallpox.

A Year With 988: What Worked? What Challenges Lie Ahead?

The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, a national hotline, reached its first-year milestone this month.

The Painful Legacy of ‘Law and Order’ Treatment of Addiction in Jail

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.

Mental Health Respite Facilities Are Filling Care Gaps in Over a Dozen States

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.

Why the Next Big Hope for Alzheimer’s Might Not Help Most Black Patients

Black patients and other minorities tend to be diagnosed at later stages of the disease, which would exclude them from use of Leqembi. Few Black people were included in the main trial of the drug.

Misinformation Obscures Standards Guiding Gender-Affirming Care for Trans Youth

Many state legislatures have passed or are considering restrictions on gender-affirming care for trans minors. Yet much of the discussion is based on misconceptions about what that care entails.

Privately Insured People with Depression and Anxiety Face High Out-of-Pocket Costs

This analysis finds that privately insured adults who were treated for depression and/or anxiety in 2021 spent almost twice as much on annual out-of-pocket costs compared to enrollees who were not treated for a mental health diagnosis.

Privately Insured People with Depression and Anxiety Face High Out-of-Pocket Costs

This analysis finds that privately insured adults who were treated for depression and/or anxiety in 2021 spent almost twice as much on annual out-of-pocket costs compared to enrollees who were not treated for a mental health diagnosis.

Advocates Call for 911 Changes. Police Have Mixed Feelings.

Though most California counties are experimenting with dispatching health professionals rather than law enforcement to respond to people experiencing mental health crises, powerful police unions fear defunding.

Medical Exiles: Families Flee States Amid Crackdown on Transgender Care

As more states restrict gender-affirming care for transgender people, some are relocating to more welcoming destinations, such as California, Illinois, Maryland, and Nevada, where they don’t have to worry about being locked out of medical care.