What We’re Reading
By Joy Burkhard, MBA
Founder and Executive Director, 2020 Mom
This month, several articles about stillbirth, employee benefits, and how they are changing in light of COVID and its mental health burden, and the reduction of suicides are among those that I highlight below. Leave a comment below if any of these articles strike a chord with you.
The Staggering Toll Of Complications Related to Pregnancy and Childbirth
For all babies born in 2019 and the five-year period afterward, complications due to pregnancy and childbirth cost at least $32.3 billion.
Surprise Medical Bills Average $750 to $2,600, New Federal Report Says
An HHS report says unexpected out-of-network medical bills are common and average $750 for childbirth-related services, more than $1,200 for anesthesiology and $2,600 for services provided by surgical assistants. Patients who get an unexpected bill for emergency care are charged more than tenfold the amount paid by patients who don't receive such bills.
Stillbirth Risk Spiked With Delta
Two CDC reports characterize heightened risks for pregnant women with COVID-19.
As Workers Struggle With Pandemic’s Impact, Employers Expand Mental Health Benefits
In its 2021 Employer Health Benefits Survey, recently released, Kaiser Family Foundation found that many employers have ramped up mental health and other benefits to provide support for their workers during uncertain times.
The Pandemic Didn’t Increase Suicides. That Shouldn’t Be a Surprise
Provisional data released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that for the entire year of 2020 — when most lockdown procedures were put in place, many communities saw their highest rates of Covid-related deaths, and economic uncertainty was at its peak — suicide rates dropped by 3%.
Rural Hospital Closures Prompt Maternal and Infant Mortality Concerns, Psychological Birth Trauma
The country’s smallest hospitals continue to be in peril, as are the patients who rely on them. This issue continues to be the reality for rural health with major challenges for the patients and providers in those regions. 7.4% of babies born in the US are birthed at hospitals handling 10 to 500 births a year, or “low-volume” hospitals.
Employers Must Modernize Benefits
Benefits are essential for the health and well-being of employees and for an organization’s ability to attract and retain talent. Despite their importance, contemporary benefits packages appear to be falling short. This article highlights some of the key areas in need of improvement so that organizations can offer a holistic and impactful set of benefits.
Psilocybin “Magic Mushrooms” Works For Treating Serious Depression, Largest Trial Shows
In eagerly awaited results of the largest-ever study of psilocybin, Compass Pathways revealed it was highly efficacious as a therapy for treatment-resistant depression. Results released by the company showed patients given the highest dose, 25 milligrams, had a significant decrease in depressive symptoms compared to those given 1 milligram (essentially a placebo).
Small Study Finds Clues To Mom’s Adversity In Baby Teeth
Among 70 children, those whose mothers experienced depression or anxiety had wider neonatal lines; those whose mothers had good social support had narrower neonatal lines. That link held up despite other risk factors, the new study in JAMA Network Open reports, leading the researchers to hope baby teeth lost by age 7 could predict which children are at higher risk for their own psychosocial problems later because of their early exposure to adversity.
Without A Dedicated Enforcement Mechanism, New Federal Protections Are Unlikely To Improve Provider Directory Accuracy
To access health care, US consumers must first navigate an often-confusing, bureaucratic, and time-intensive health care system. The opacity of this system comes to a head in provider directories, the lists of in-network providers that insurers typically provide to consumers both while they are shopping for a plan and after they are enrolled. These straightforward directories play a vital role in ensuring consumer access to health care from in-network providers at lower costs covered by their insurers than seeking care from out-of-network providers. Yet, despite the importance of provider directories, they are frequently highly inaccurate.
Medicaid Expansion Associated With Some Improvements In Perinatal Mental Health
Poor perinatal mental health is a common pregnancy-related morbidity with potentially serious impacts that extend beyond the individual to their family. A possible contributing factor to poor perinatal mental health is discontinuity in health insurance coverage, which is particularly important among low-income people.
People in states without Medicaid expansion can’t wait any longer to build back better
Lawmakers are in the midst of deliberations over the Build Back Better Act, a landmark legislative package to transform the U.S. for the better. One piece of the bill that would have a huge impact is a provision that would provide health coverage to millions of uninsured Americans who live in states that haven’t expanded Medicaid by opening up coverage for people with incomes below a certain level.
CMS Greenlights Certain Telebehavioral Health Services Beyond the COVID Emergency and Provides Important Incentives for Further Investment
The COVID-19 Global Pandemic compelled the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) to revamp its approach to regulating telehealth services and temporarily embrace the modality as a practical treatment option.
‘You Need a Whole Team’: How a Virtual Mentoring Program Has Helped Bring Care Closer To Rural Patients
A telementoring program called Project ECHO, can listen to the patient’s medical history and offer advice about what to do next. The program — which links rural providers with specialists and their peers to help them manage complex cases — fills what experts call a gaping need for specialty care in remote communities.
“It does something a lot of other frameworks don't: It generates a multiplication factor greater than one,” Ryan McBain, a RAND Corporation policy researcher.
Making Mental Health Digital RX Encounters Billable
As prescription-based digital platforms for behavioral health proliferate, their success depends on doctors’ willingness to write scripts. That’s less likely when providers have trouble getting reimbursed for their work prescribing and managing the digital programs. But a newly updated set of CPT codes from the American Medical Association, which will go into effect in January 2023, could encourage adoption. By clarifying two sets of guidelines for reporting cognitive behavioral therapy and adding a new code for supplying a remote device to monitor CBT, doctors may find more reasons to add digital therapeutics to their toolbox.
Moms Are Not OK: Understand, Recognize, and Treat Postpartum Depression
Having a baby should be a happy time, so why are many mothers sad after delivery? The weeks following childbirth often called the "fourth trimester," can be confusing, exhausting, and challenging. Many women experience the baby blues. If this condition lasts more than four weeks, it may indicate postpartum depression. As childbearing's most common, debilitating complication, postpartum depression is often undertreated. Many mothers do not receive a diagnosis until 6 to 12 months after delivery but may experience symptoms earlier.
Walking May Reduce Postpartum Depression Symptoms
New study finds new moms benefit from short, daily walks.
Psychedelic Drug in Early Stages of Development Could Have Potential for Postpartum Depression
Nathan Bryson, PhD, chief scientific officer of Field Trip Health, said the company's new psychedelic compound, FT-104, could have potential uses in the treatment of postpartum depression.
California Law Aims to Strengthen Access to Mental Health Services
The number of people with symptoms of depression and anxiety has nearly quadrupled during the covid pandemic, which has made it even more maddeningly difficult to get timely mental health care, even if you have ‘good insurance’.
We Should All Be Talking About America’s Black Maternal Health Crisis
The pandemic has only exacerbated the racial disparities in birth outcomes, but new legislation focused on reducing Black maternal deaths provides a beacon of hope.
Social Support Decreases Prenatal Depression
A new study examines the relationship between social support and stress on pregnant women brought on by fear of pregnancy, pregnancy-related symptoms and burdens on finances for example found social support decreased the risk of depression during pregnancy and improved mental health and stress levels.
Check On Mom: New Program Seeks To Prioritize Mental Health Of Moms In The Fourth Trimester And Beyond
“Being able to lean into a support system allows a woman to focus on what really matters - her baby and her mental health and well-being.”
We’ve all heard about a birth plan, which is an outline of how you want things to play out during your labor and delivery. But how many expectant moms prepare a plan for how they’re going to tackle the significant emotional changes that can occur in the fourth trimester? Not many.
Socioeconomic Inequality Accounts for Many Stillbirths, Preemies
One quarter of stillbirths could have been avoided, U.K. study finds.
How Covid Changed Health Benefits For Employees
The pandemic has altered the health benefits that employers provide, according to a new KFF survey. Nearly 4 in 10 companies with at least 50 workers say they adapted their mental health and substance misuse offerings to meet demand. Some reported increasing access to telemedicine, offering a new employee assistance program, expanding their in-network provider ranks, waiving or trimming cost-sharing, or increasing coverage of out-of-network services. Among employers with 50 or more workers, 12% said more people were availing themselves of mental health services.
