The impact that Health Care reform legislation will have on behavioral health providers is just beginning to be understood.

Sorting through the many-faceted changes facing the health care field over the next three years, it is a challenge to come up with the specific factors that we need to guide organizational development.[...] [we] have identified what we think are four key strategic implications for behavioral health provider organizations over the next 36 months:

• Most behavioral health dollars will flow through health plans
• Changes in finance and technology will increase preparation of behavioral health services provided via 'primary care'
• Health plan-based financing will draw clear lines between 'health' services and 'social' services
• Comparative effectiveness initiatives will increase the private pay market in behavioral health

With a combination of parity and greatly reduced uninsured population, most behavioral health treatment will be funded by health plans (private, Medicaid, Medicare, etc.). Federal grants and state program dollars that make up traditional 'safety net' funding for behavioral health will diminish - both because of lack of decreased consumer need and increased demand for funding for new 'entitlements.'

Oss, M. (2010, May). A Management lesson in existence with elephants: what health care reform legislation means for behavioral health organizations. Open Minds, 22 (2). Retrieved from: http://www.openminds.com/
See also: Oss, M. (2010, May 20). Parity & health care reform: what are the strategic implications for your organization? Open Minds. http://www.openminds.com/ [posted 06/29/2010]

The number of children taking prescription drugs for diabetes has increased dramatically.

The number of children who take pills for type 2 diabetes - the kind that's closely linked to obesity - more than doubled from 2002 to 2005, to a rate of six out of 10,000 children. That suggests that at least 23,000 privately insured children in the USA are now taking diabetes medications, according to authors of the new study in Monday's Pediatrics. Doctors also saw big increases in prescriptions for high cholesterol, asthma and attention deficit and hyperactivity. There was smaller growth for drugs for depression and high blood pressure... The gender gap was most striking in diabetes: While the number of boys taking medication grew by 39%, the number of girls using them climbed by 147%, Cox found. [Emily Cox, senior director of research with Express Scripts, which administers drug benefit programs for private insurance plans]

NOVEMBER 2, 2008, Number of Kids on Medication Jumps Alarmingly, by Liz Szabo, USA Today, http://www.usatoday.com [posted 11/6/2008]