Literature Collection

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to characterize trends in office-based, mental health-related physician visits of children and adolescents. METHODS: This descriptive, repeated cross-sectional study analyzed visits (unweighted N=43,790) of children and adolescents, ages 4-17, in the 2005-2019 waves of the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, an annual nationally representative survey of U.S. office-based physician visits. The analysis estimated changes in the proportion of visits involving any psychiatric diagnosis, specific diagnoses, and psychiatric medications. RESULTS: The average yearly number of all pediatric visits fell over the study period, whereas the yearly percentage of visits addressing mental health increased among children and adolescents, from 9.3% in 2005-2011 to 13.6% in 2012-2019. The proportion of primary care physician visits addressing mental health increased by 44.7% across the study period. The increase in psychiatric diagnoses was driven by anxiety disorders, which increased the most among female patients. Psychiatric diagnoses increased by 65.9% in visits with adolescents ages 13-17 and 30.9% in visits with children ages 4-12. The authors detected increases in mental health visits among non-Hispanic White and Hispanic youths but not among non-Hispanic Black youths. No statistically significant changes were found in psychiatric medication prescription or continuation at mental health visits. CONCLUSIONS: Office-based physicians increasingly address mental health concerns, reflecting the increasing demand among children and adolescents. Psychiatric diagnoses at office-based physician visits differ by patients' sex and race-ethnicity. Many primary care physicians provide mental health care, highlighting the need for rigorous mental health training for pediatricians.

BACKGROUND: Patient-centered medical homes are expected to reduce expenditures by increasing the use of primary care services, shifting care from inpatient to outpatient settings, and reducing avoidable utilization. Under the Multi-Payer Advanced Primary Care Practice (MAPCP) Demonstration, Medicare joined Medicaid and commercial payers in 8 states to support ongoing patient-centered medical home initiatives. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effects of the MAPCP Demonstration on health care utilization and expenditures for Medicare beneficiaries. RESEARCH DESIGN: We used difference-in-differences regression modeling to estimate changes in utilization and expenditures before and after the start of the MAPCP Demonstration, comparing beneficiaries engaged with MAPCP Demonstration practices to beneficiaries engaged with primary care practices that were not medical homes. Qualitative data collected during annual site visits provided contextual information on participating practices to inform interpretations of the demonstration outcomes. SUBJECTS: Fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries attributed to MAPCP Demonstration practices or to comparison group practices. MEASURES: Medicare claims were used to measure total Medicare expenditures and utilization and expenditures for inpatient, emergency room, primary care, and specialist services. RESULTS: Despite the transformation of practices over the demonstration period, there was minimal evidence of a shift to more efficient utilization of health care services, and only 1 state saw a statistically significant reduction in total per-beneficiary expenditures. CONCLUSIONS: Although the MAPCP Demonstration did not have strong, consistent impacts on utilization and expenditures, this evaluation provides insights that may be useful for the design of future health care transformation models.

AIMS: In England, psychological therapies provided in primary care are recommended as first-line treatment for people living with mild-to-moderate dementia experiencing depression or anxiety. It is known that people living with dementia experience more barriers to accessing therapy than people without dementia, but such inequalities in terms of rates of access to primary care services are yet to be characterised. METHODS: In this retrospective, observational study of linked electronic healthcare records, the national database of the National Health Service (NHS) Talking Therapies for anxiety and depression programme was used to compare pathways to accessing therapy between 6623 people living with dementia and 4 825 489 without dementia between 2012 and 2019. Outcomes included access to an assessment, to therapy and reasons for discharge. Primary analyses used a propensity-score matched cohort to compare outcomes. Exact matching was used for the NHS service entity. RESULTS: The prevalence of dementia in the study cohort was lower than the prevalence of dementia in a representative population, based on an estimation of prevalence in people with mild-to-moderate age over 35 (0.23% in our study vs 3.82% in previous research). Compared to people without dementia, people living with dementia were less likely to access an assessment (odds ratio [OR] = 0.60; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.55-0.65), to subsequently receive therapy (OR = 0.67; 95% CI: 0.61-0.73) and more likely to be discharged because services were deemed not suitable before having an assessment (relative rate ratio [RRR] = 4.90; 95% CI: 4.20-5.72) and starting therapy (RRR = 2.74; 95% CI: 2.24-3.35). Female gender, social deprivation, Asian ethnicity and less common dementia subtypes (such as frontotemporal dementia) were also associated with poorer access rates and a higher likelihood of services being deemed not suitable. Involvement of care partners in the referral process was associated with better access rates. CONCLUSIONS: Pathways to accessing primary care psychological therapy services must be made more accessible for people living with dementia. Better access could be achieved by increasing referrer awareness and training for staff within services to promote access for people living with dementia (especially for groups under-represented in services), better understanding how to involve care partners in the process, as well as when specialist support might be more suited in secondary care. More granularity in the medical coding of rarer dementia diagnoses in electronic health records would also allow for better statistically powered research for these groups.

BACKGROUND: To determine how clinicians with a DATA waiver to prescribe buprenorphine for opioid use disorder (OUD) adapted during the COVID-19 pandemic to emergency authorities, including use of telehealth to prescribe buprenorphine, the challenges faced by clinicians, and strategies employed by them to manage patients with OUD. METHODS: From June 23, 2020 to August 19, 2020, we conducted an electronic survey of U.S. DATA-waivered clinicians. Descriptive statistics and multivariable logistic regression were used for analysis. RESULTS: Among 10,238 respondents, 68 % were physicians, 25 % nursing-related providers, and 6% physician assistants; 28 % reported never prescribing or not prescribing in the 12 months prior to the survey. Among the 72 % of clinicians who reported past 12-month buprenorphine prescribing (i.e. active practitioners during the pandemic) 30 % reported their practice setting closed to in-person visits during COVID-19; 33 % reported remote prescribing to new patients without an in-person examination. The strongest predictors of remote buprenorphine prescribing to new patients were prescribing buprenorphine to larger numbers of patients in an average month in the past year and closure of the practice setting during the pandemic; previous experience with remote prescribing to established patients prior to COVID-19 also was a significant predictor. Among clinicians prescribing to new patients without an in-person examination, 5.5 % reported difficulties with buprenorphine induction, most commonly withdrawal symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Telehealth practices and prescribing to new patients without an in-person examination were adopted by DATA-waivered clinicians during the first six months of COVID-19. Permanent adoption of these authorities may enable expanded access to buprenorphine treatment.