Monthly Archives February 2014

Allison Malmon
Founder and Executive Director of Active Minds

According to NCBI there is strong comorbidity between eating disorders and mood disorders. Read today’s CFYM post, by Alison Malmon, founder and executive director of Active Minds, Inc., to learn more about Eating Disorders Awareness Week and how these complex mental health disorders affect college students.

Eating Disorders Awareness Week

When discussing mental health issues, especially on college campuses, I’ve noticed that we often bypass one of the most life-threatening: eating disorders. Knowing that 40 percent of all people are struggling with or impacted by eating disorders, Active Minds launched its Eating Disorder Awareness Week in 2011 and will begin its fourth observation on February 23, 2014. The week is devoted to educating the public—and especially our student chapters—about the prevalence of eating disorders, the many ways they affect college-aged students, and how young adults can support one another in prevention, treatment, and recovery.

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David Precise 
Executive Director of NAMI Louisiana

Jumping Over a Dollar to Pick Up a Nickel
How mental health policies, including the new Medicare Part D proposed rule, sacrifice patient outcomes and long-term cost control for short-term savings

There is an expression I use—jumping over a dollar to pick up a nickel—that describes ignoring one reward in pursuit of another, smaller prize. Blinded by the appeal of the shiny nickel, we ignore the dollar right beneath our feet. Too often, our nation’s mental health policies are driven by such short-sighted mentality; and too frequently, people with mental health disorders suffer as a result.

When the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced a Medicare Part D proposed rule, one which would restrict beneficiaries’ access to important antidepressants and antipsychotics, I was disappointed to see yet another example of this reckless mindset. For while restricting formularies is often proposed as a way to control health care costs, we know that denying patients’ access to the full category of drugs often leads to worsening conditions and increased health costs down the road.

That’s because every human being’s brain is different and responds to treatment in different ways. If there are 20 different drugs for schizophrenia and the formulary is cut to just the four cheapest, we put individuals at great risk, and society incurs the associated health costs of untreated and uncontrolled mental illness.

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Ben Nevers
State Senator Louisiana

For the past three weeks we’ve devoted this blog to raising awareness around a proposed regulation by the CMS to restrict access to mental health care. But did you know that individual states have fail first policies as well, through the implementation of their Medicaid programs? Read today’s post to learn if your state is on the list.

Louisiana is a National Leader with their “Prescriber Prevails” Medicaid Policy
Keeps access to medication in the hands of physicians and patients

There are many reasons why people do not receive adequate mental health treatment, each of those reasons is as unique and as highly personalized as the individuals themselves. Yet, nearly all stem from the fundamental problem of access. Access to timely, appropriate, affordable mental health care is too often limited and restricted as a result of the following:

• a shortage of providers or inpatient beds in a given community
• insurer restrictions on what, when and how providers can prescribe medication and treatment
• cost barriers that put mental health care financially out of reach

When such barriers obstruct access to care, more people are at risk for serious, disabling mental illness; and in those cases, society bears the related costs. For that reason, I believe we must work together to address these barriers and expand access to mental health services. The cost of not doing so is enormous.

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Today’s CFYM post is all about sharing your personal story. Learn how three DBSA peers traveling to Washington will share your comments from the past two weeks with Congressional Representatives. Read what affect another peer thinks the proposed CMS regulation to restrict access to quality mental health care would have had on his recovery.

For the past two weeks, CFYM has informed our readers on the misguided decision by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to restrict access to quality mental health care. Over the past several weeks since the CMS announced a proposal to eliminate antidepressant and immunosuppressant medications from protected class status, many citizens have taken up the call to make their voices heard. As a result, last week the Senate Finance Committee sent a letter to Marilyn Tavenner, CMS Administrator asking that the regulation be rescinded. All 24 members of the Finance Committee signed the letter. Reporting on the action, BioCentury reported that the letter states “If beneficiaries do not have access to needed medications, costs will be incurred as a result of unnecessary and avoidable hospitalizations, physician visits, and other medical interventions that are otherwise preventable with proper adherence to medication,”

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Joseph R. Calabrese, M.D.
Director, Mood Disorders Program, University Hospitals Case Medical Center
Bipolar Disorder Research Chair & Professor of Psychiatry, CWRU School of Medicine
Dir., Bipolar Disorders Research Center

This week we are pleased to post the expert opinion of Joseph Calabrese, M.D. on the serious consequences of the proposed regulation to limit access to antidepressant, immunosuppressant and antipsychotic medications for recipients of Medicare Part D. Read the post and take action by participating in the conversation. This enables all of us to share these collective stories with our elected officials through e-mails, letters and in-person visits.

Why I’m Speaking Out Against the Proposed Medicare Part D Change —
And Why You Should, Too

Last month the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released a proposed rule that would initiate major changes to prescription drug plans under Medicare Part D. These changes would severely limit access to medications that are commonly used to treat serious mental illness and create serious challenges for people who have these mental health disorders.

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