Behavioral Health News

Colorado's newly formed behavioral health administration aims to address the shortage of mental health workers, set behavioral healthcare quality standards and help businesses provide access to these services for their employees, according to the Denver Business Journal.

A report from the Spokane (Wash.) Police Department's behavioral health unit shows that 80 percent of the people it contacted did not end up in jail or the hospital, The Spokesman-Review reported July 15.

Nicole Kasimatis, the owner of Quincy, Mass.-based Fortitude Counseling and Recovery Center, was sentenced to at least three years in prison after she pled guilty to fraudulent billing, the state attorney general's office said July 15.

In the last two months, Becker's has reported on at least nine physicians who have come under fire for illegally prescribing, selling or distributing opioids and other addictive drugs, including one so prolific he called himself "El Chapo of Opioids."

Pittsburgh-based Healthy Start, an organization treating pregnancy-related health issues, created the Moving Beyond Depression program to treat Black parents with prenatal and postpartum depression, Public Source reported July 11. 

Sidney Zisook, MD, psychiatry professor and director of the University of California San Diego residency training program, listed the biggest challenges in treating major depressive disorder, published in Psychiatric Times July 12.

In its proposed fee schedule for 2023, CMS is proposing the same fee-for-service payment rate for behavioral healthcare physicians accepting Medicare as Medicare physicians who offer a wider range of medical services.

The University of Central Florida in Orange County and HCA Florida Capital Hospital in Tallahassee welcomed its first psychiatry residents this week, local news source WFSU reported July 12. 

Broaden Hospital in Morganton, N.C., one of the state's largest psychiatric hospitals after a $160 million expansion in 2019, is facing staffing shortages, which former workers say is "running [staff] to death," local news source WSOC-TV reported July 12.

John Muir Health, a nonprofit healthcare organization based in Walnut Creek, Calif., was awarded The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval accreditation for its psychiatric hospital and outpatient program services.