Public health advocates and advocates for the poor seem prone to view the glass as half empty rather than half full. This is about teletherapy. Therapy over the phone was supposed to expand access to mental health care to needy people but so far that hasn’t happened, experts say. Online therapy is booming, but the poor and needy don’t seem to use it.
Category: Telemedicine
Thursday Links
- Trudeau’s legacy: Canada’s per capita income has fallen to below 70% of what it is in the U.S.
- Do hospital mergers damage local economies and result in an increase in deaths by suicide and drug overdoses? Maybe not.
- Telemedicine under Medicare gets a 3-month extension.
- Each year, 120,000 die from snake bites and about 400,000 lose limbs to amputation.
- Study: Sugary drinks were linked to 2.2 million additional cases of Type 2 diabetes and 1.2 million cases of cardiovascular disease in 2020, with a disproportionate share of those cases concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.
- Wastewater, even after treatment to make it drinkable, contains high levels of forever chemicals.
- Evolution of Part D plans over a decade: more prior authorization and step therapy requirements
Mental Health Disorders are on the Rise, as are Unqualified Therapists
Covid and the lockdowns increased self-reported cases of anxiety and depression. People were sequestered in apartments, homes away from work and many of the services they’d come to enjoy. Many were having to work (or unable to work) while their kids were studying over Zoom. With increased demand for therapists, not all therapists are equal in skill. Rachel Hall from The Guardian reports on when therapy goes wrong, when you are cared for by an unqualified mental health practitioner.