Behavioral Health Management articles from September 1996

Behavioral Health Management archives from September 1996

HEDIS over heels? (Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set)
September 1, 1996... In a quiet victory for behavioral health care, the latest version of the privately-sponsored national "scorecard" used to rate health plans includes new measures that focus on care and prevention of mental health and addiction disorders. ...

Thoughts on disease management in behavioral care: an old practice becomes a new concept - and enters a new field.(Cover Story)
September 1, 1996... Changes in health care will continue to unfold and reshape the marketplace. Even with this constant change, two factors are predictable: the dollars available for health care will continue to be limited, and as baby boomers age, demographic...

Bridging the gap between behavioral health care and medication management: managed care generates lots of data, and this MCO is putting them to use in disease management. (managed care organization)(PsychoPharmaCare)(Cover Story)
September 1, 1996... A not so uncommon scenario: Joan is one of more than 17 million Americans dealing with depression. Joan is seeing a psychiatrist who has prescribed an antidepressant medication. However, Joan is also being treated by her primary care physician...

Treatment by the numbers: an interview with Peter L. Brill, MD, chairman and CEO, Compass Information Services, Inc.(Cover Story)
September 1, 1996... In developing what has to be one of the richest treatment databases in all of health care, a Pennsylvania-based outcomes management company, Compass Information Services, Inc., is addressing a problem of critical importance to managed care: Can...

Treating the somaticizer: a direct contribution behavioral care can make to managed care's "bottom line".(Cover Story)
September 1, 1996... Every physician has seen them - the patient presenting with peresistent insomnia, headaches or stomach upsets for no apparent physical reasons and for whom no treatments work. Resources are spent on repeat visits, tests and futile trials of...

Biofeedback as a disease management adjunct: a technique that has been found to enhance and expedite cognitive behavioral therapy.(Cover Story)
September 1, 1996... A technique gaining growing attention in the behavioral disease management context is biofeedback. There are several well-founded reasons for this. Biofeedback can be successfully integrated into a brief cognitive-behavioral therapy CCBTJ...

Family therapists: the "family docs" of behavioral health care, they may well be the "dark horses" of managed behavioral care.(Cover Story)
September 1, 1996... Marriage and family therapy is at a very exciting period of time. As systematic thinkers and relationship experts, family therapists, knowledge and skills are becoming more attractive to many different business settings. Family therapists...

PCS disease management for depression: one company's initiative for a traditionally undermanaged - and very costly - disorder. (PSC HealthSystems Inc.)
September 1, 1996... Depression is one of the most treatable of an illnesses, but for many of those afflicted, the road to recovery is full of unnecessary roadblocks. Several recent studies have found that primary care physicians underdiagnose and undertreat...

Building a provider-owned integrated delivery system: a guide to avoiding the many roadblocks along the way.
September 1, 1996... Too often providers, hospitals and structured outpatient programs are competitors in the delivery of behavioral health services. We have developed a model wherein providers, hospitals and structured outpatient programs work together to form a...

The addicted brain: an era of scientific breakthroughs. (interview with Alan I. Leshner, PhD, director, National Institute on Drug Abuse)
September 1, 1996... T hough it may not rank with discovery of life on another planet, the discovery that the brain has an "addiction pathway" shared by nearly all substances of abuse is big news enough. It means that, for the first time, we are beginning to...

The changing face of intervention: an old, and sometimes discredited, means of prompting the addicted to get treatment is undergoing a facelift.
September 1, 1996... Throughout the past two decades, intervention has stood alone, by itself, and separate from the treatment continuum of care. Intervention involves having loved ones, under (hopefully) expert supervision, confront an addicted individual about...

Managing disease state management.
September 1, 1996... Disease state management (DSM) - it's not always an easy concept to grasp, much less write about, because definitions and developments have been so fluid in these, its early stages. I heard some interesting comments, though, about DSM during a...