Researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, along with experts from across the country, have developed a set of policy recommendations that would improve the quality of behavioral health care patients receive in clinical settings.

The Eugene S. Farley, Jr. Health Policy Center, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, released recommendations in a report, "Creating a Culture of Whole Health," that offers practical improvements that would eliminate the artificial separation of "mental health" from "physical health." The report provides recommendations that call for creating a new approach to health care.

"The health care system differentiates physical and behavioral health care, patients don't," said Benjamin Miller, PsyD, director of the Eugene S. Farley, Jr. Health Policy Center and assistant professor of family medicine at the CU School of Medicine. "They seek care in a single setting with providers they trust in clinics that are convenient for them to visit. There should be no 'wrong door' preventing patients from accessing appropriate care."

To improve the quality of care, Miller and the project team make several recommendations. Read more here.

A study published online in American Journal of Emergency Medicine found lengthy waits for severely ill child and adolescent psychiatric patients in need of immediate hospitalization due, in part, to time consuming prior authorizations required by insurance companies. Mental health workers spent, on average, 60 minutes on the telephone obtaining authorization. In one case obtaining authorization took 4.5 hours. Over half of these youth who required hospitalization were suicidal, and a substantial minority were aggressive, assaultive, and or homicidal.

Four million children and adolescents in the US suffer from a serious mental disorder that causes significant functional impairments at home, at school and with peers. In youth, many of these disorders can have life-long deleterious effects. Timely access to care might reduce the harms mental illness imposes on youth, along with their families and communities.

For the present study, over a 5 month period, psychiatric clinicians in the Hasbro Children's Hospital emergency room (ER) in Rhode Island tabulated data each time they contacted an insurance company on behalf of a child deemed in need of psychiatric admission. Patients ranged in age from 4 to 19 years old and the most common reasons for admission included suicidal ideation or a suicide attempt (56%), aggression (22%), and homicidal ideation (10%).  The average time required to obtain authorization from the insurance company from the time of first contact to authorization was 59.8 minutes. The time spent on these calls simply added to the total time these children spent in the ER prior to being admitted to an inpatient unit. Every single request for admission was granted.  Read more here.