Latest news with #mentalhealthcare
Forbes
22-07-2025
- Health
- Forbes
Is The Mental Health System Broken Or Was It Never Built To Work?
Five years ago, a research team at Stanford achieved what many in psychiatry had long hoped for: A treatment for severe depression that worked rapidly, reliably, and without medication. In their 2020 SAINT trial, 19 out of 21 participants with treatment-resistant depression achieved remission after just five days of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). It was a landmark moment. Yet today, the treatment remains almost entirely inaccessible to the average patient. Stanford Accelerated Intelligent Neuromodulation Therapy (SAINT) is still paid for out of pocket, costing roughly $20,000, and insurers have been slow to move. A paradox at the heart of American mental healthcare: as innovation accelerates, access stalls. Over the last five years, more than $13 billion has been invested in the sector, but outcomes haven't improved in kind. Patients still cycle through multiple failed treatments. Clinicians are burnt out, and payers are stuck making decisions with no data. It's tempting to say the system is broken. But perhaps it was never built to do what we're now asking of it. A System Built for Simplicity, Not Reality Modern mental healthcare still relies on a medical model designed for acute illness: assess symptoms, assign a diagnosis, and prescribe a standard treatment. It's a linear approach that works well for infections and injuries. But mental illness is not linear. A messy intersection of biology, trauma, environment, and social context shapes conditions like depression, PTSD, and OCD. There's no single cause, no universal treatment. And yet, the system continues to reduce people to diagnosis codes and protocol templates, often leaving naivety at the door. This reductionist model doesn't reflect the complexity of the human experience, and it leaves patients, clinicians, and payers with more questions than answers. The system doesn't work for anyone. Yet, the misalignment of incentives means that all stakeholders are working against one another. Payers prioritize risk management—and in the absence of meaningful data, default to spending as little as possible. Providers focus on individual outcomes. Pharma chases scalable efficacy. Patients just want relief. But it seems no one is working with the correct information, and the frustration and disappointment are palpable. Data alone doesn't matter, because it's about how you use the data to drive change, according to Brayden Efseroff, psychiatrist and Chief Medical Officer at Allia Health. 'When patients cycle through multiple failed treatments before finding relief, it's not just frustrating - it's a sign of systemic dysfunction. Decisions are being made without context.' Ariel Ganz, PhD, a precision mental health researcher at Stanford, agrees, 'The same data clinicians need to design effective treatment plans is also critical for payers to manage risk, researchers to improve understanding, and patients to advocate for themselves on their health journey. 'Without more high-quality data, none of these parties can effectively improve patient outcomes.' Precision Mental Health Company is addressing this issue at its core. Their AI-native electronic health record (EHR) isn't designed to replace therapists or psychiatrists, but to support them by capturing, organizing, and translating real-world data into usable, structured insights. This innovative solution holds the promise of a brighter future for mental healthcare. Instead of extracting revenue from clinicians through software subscriptions or taking a percentage of their reimbursement, payers partner directly with Allia on value-based contracts. They're paid only when patients achieve measurable improvements, a stark contrast to the fee-for-service model that rewards volume over outcomes. Amie Leighton, CEO of Allia Health, discovered the need for better data firsthand during years of cycling through hospitals and treatment before finally receiving adequate care. The turning point came when her clinicians had access to complete information about her and were able to communicate with each other - something that had been missing throughout her previous treatments. This personal experience, and the empathy it engenders, shaped the company's mission: to build the infrastructure that allows for context-rich, coordinated, and personalised care. The Bigger Picture How do you fix a system that was never designed to work in the first place? We still have a long way to go, but for the millions of Americans struggling with mental health challenges, finally, an infrastructure-first approach offers something that's been missing: a system designed to actually help people recover. In an industry where patients commonly endure multiple failed treatments before finding relief, this represents a significant shift toward care that prioritizes outcomes.
CBC
18-07-2025
- Health
- CBC
Debate on forced mental health treatment continues as one woman's costs top $800K
The price of inadequate mental health care 14 minutes ago Duration 3:06 Social Sharing In the fight to better help people with severe and persistent mental illness in Ontario — which can sometimes result in costly detention in jails and hospitals — two opposing camps are lobbying the Ministry of Health in very different directions. On one side are those who think unwell patients are given too much freedom to reject treatment, putting them at risk of having their mental illnesses progress and become entrenched. On the other side are the patient advocates who say there are already enough mechanisms to force treatment on people, that giving patients the help they ask for leads to better outcomes, and that insufficient community support is the real problem. Meanwhile, health and justice systems as they exist today can spend much to achieve little. In one woman's ongoing case, a CBC News analysis estimates the costs since 2018 at $811,600 — and counting. She has bipolar I disorder, characterized by episodes of extreme emotional highs that last at least a week, followed by depression. Yet despite Barbara Cleary's dozens of stints in hospital psychiatric wards, emergency housing, jail cells and living rough — as well as brief periods of stability and several months in an assisted living facility last year — today the 76-year-old is again unhoused, living in a tent encampment in Cornwall, Ont., continuing the cycle. 'An extremely high cost to the system' "It is an extremely high cost to the system when people are unwell," said Dr. Karen Shin, chief of psychiatry at St. Michael's Hospital for Unity Health Toronto and chair of the Ontario Psychiatric Association. "And you have to remember, she's one person. If you went in and reached out to any psychiatrists in the system that are working in a hospital, they can tell you numerous people they care for that have a similar story." Cornwall police say they're dealing with 20 people like Cleary on a daily basis. The force picked five individuals from that group and found each averaged 53 occurrences requiring police response in 2024. So, what to do? Shin founded and co-leads the Ontario Psychiatric Association's mental health and law reform task force, which is calling on the province to expand forced treatment in certain circumstances. From her organization's perspective, some forced care protects the right to health for vulnerable people whose illnesses can cause delusional thinking. "Choice is extremely important, but that choice has to be a capable choice, and a capable choice needs to include that there's an understanding of the symptoms of the illness and the consequences of saying, 'No, I don't want treatment,'" Shin said. The task force wants the province to: Permit treatment during a patient's court appeal after the Consent and Capacity Board upholds a finding that they're incapable of making a decision. Remove the requirement that people have had to respond to treatment in the past from involuntary admission criteria under the Mental Health Act. Extend a first involuntary admission from 14 days to up to 30 days. An organization called the Empowerment Council takes an opposing view. It says medication comes with risks that not every patient can tolerate, including the possibility of neurological damage, and that the trauma of having something forced into the body and mind can interrupt therapeutic relationships and scare people into avoiding it altogether. "Why not exhaust providing the services that evidence shows help people, rather than spending a half a million dollars on your more carceral responses?" said Jennifer Chambers, the council's executive director. "Instead, people are just in and out, in and out, and it makes no sense." Cleary spent a few months in an assisted living facility last year after CBC first covered her story. She was removed last August by police after her illness deteriorated. In late October she was arrested and charged by Cornwall police for the 23rd time, according to court records — this time for breaching probation and trespassing at her former apartment building. She spent a month and a half in jail getting back on medication before she pleaded guilty in December. She was sentenced to the time she had already served, bringing her total time in jail since 2018 to about 347 days. Near her tent encampment on Wednesday, she recalled being removed from the assisted living facility and being strapped down on a bed in an anteroom of the hospital's emergency department for half a day. "Then they admitted me for 12 days. The doctor released me onto the street again," she said. Asked what she thinks she needs, Cleary said Cornwall has only one psychiatrist and requires more, and that she needs to live with someone who can help her with things like getting around and getting dressed. Many people in the unhoused community help her out on a daily basis, she said, though in the past she has been taken advantage of by some. She wants housing, but in light of her history since 2018 it's unclear how long it would last. Chambers said Ontario used to be a leader in peer support, but that it's been first on the chopping block with funding constraints. And a transitional support system would help people adjust after being released from institutions like hospital and jail. "Peers can be really creative and supportive with just where people are, rather than concentrating so much on wrenching them into a different space against their will," she said. 'So much has changed' Shin agrees that more wrap-around social supports and services are necessary. But she also thinks Ontario's Mental Health Act needs beefing up. "So much has changed with our knowledge of mental health care, the importance of access to treatment, the concerns around repeated episodes of illness and how that leads to more intractable illness, how it can lead to medications not working as well," she said. "Most jurisdictions consider the potential risks and harms related to treatment refusal. They have legislative safeguards to ensure involuntary admission is with treatment, so that people get the treatment they need and are not indefinitely detained untreated." The provincial ministries of health and the attorney general, which oversees the justice system, have not responded to repeated requests for comment. Where our numbers come from According to a patient cost estimator run by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, which the Cornwall Community Hospital said was the best data to use, it has cost about $210,000 to hospitalize her on an inpatient basis for a total of 120 days since 2018. The estimate includes overhead costs as well as direct billing for treatment. It does not include her dozens of emergency room visits. According to figures provided by the Cornwall hospital about how much it costs to run its short-term crisis housing program ($100,000 per bed, per year), it cost about $14,600 to fund her bed for seven weeks this past winter. The Ministry of the Solicitor General said it cost about $349 per day in 2024 to house someone in an Ontario jail. Adjusted to inflation, it has cost an estimated $121,000 to keep Cleary in jail for a total of 347 days, according to a complete criminal history obtained by CBC. (Statistics Canada's daily average cost for Ontario is higher, resulting in an estimated total of about $127,000). The Ministry of the Attorney General does not keep track of or estimate costs on a case-by-case basis. Using estimated granular data from a small number of studies contained in a 2016 report on the costs of crime and criminal justice responses for Public Safety Canada, it has cost about $90,000 to shepherd her criminal cases through the Ontario Court of Justice, adjusted to inflation. The ministry said the 2016 report is the latest data available. According to statistics kept by the Department of Justice, which show Legal Aid has cost an average of about $1,200 per case from 2017 to 2023, it's cost an estimated $12,000 to pay for her defence. Policing costs, such as costs for time in court, are hard to nail down on an individual basis. Cornwall police say the lowest number of calls per year among its frequent fliers was 32 in 2024, and the highest was 88 calls. The force doesn't track costs per call or person, and said calls vary so widely in complexity and length that any estimate would be a wild guess. Using estimated granular data from a small number of studies contained in the 2016 report for Public Safety Canada, which pegs the average cost of a single police contact at about $1,400 in 2014 Canadian dollars, and using the lowest number of calls per person per year in Cornwall among its folks in Cleary's situation (32), it has cost about $364,000 to police her, adjusted to inflation. Mental health resources Do you need help, or does someone you know need help? Here are some mental health resources in the province, which differ depending on where you are: 211 Ontario maintains a database of services. You can search by topic (mental health/addictions) and your specific location. Live chat is available Monday to Friday from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. ET, and a chatbot is available 24/7. You can also text 211, call 211 or email gethelp@
Yahoo
14-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Family Care Center Brings Outpatient Mental Health Services to Memphis
Most insurance is accepted, and appointments for all ages are now available MEMPHIS, Tenn., July 14, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Family Care Center, a trusted leader in outpatient behavioral health, is proud to open its newest clinic in Memphis—marking its tenth location in Tennessee. This expansion underscores the organization's mission to provide accessible, high-quality mental health care where it's needed most. With Tennessee ranking 43rd in mental health access nationally, the need for timely, effective care is urgent. Long wait times, limited options for in-network care, and mental health provider shortages have made it difficult for many individuals and families to get the support they need. Family Care Center's Memphis clinic aims to close those gaps by offering fast access to appointments and a full range of outpatient mental health services that address anxiety, depression, trauma, and other mental conditions. "Opening our Memphis clinic reflects our ongoing commitment to expanding access to high-quality mental health care," said Dr. Chris Ivany, CEO of Family Care Center. "We provide personalized outpatient services for children, teens, and adults—supporting each individual with evidence-based treatment plans tailored to their unique needs. Our goal is to help every patient heal, grow, and thrive." The Family Care Center Memphis clinic offers a wide range of services, including: Individual, couples, and family therapy Children's and adolescent mental health care Military and Veterans' services Psychiatry and medication management Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), an innovative, non-invasive procedure for treatment-resistant depression, anxiety, OCD, and other mental health conditions Future services will include a mental health intensive outpatient program (IOP) and psychoeducational testing. "Our goal is to meet the unique needs of the Memphis community by delivering care that respects every person's culture, language, and life experience," said State Director David Wood. "With a diverse team of expert clinicians and a welcoming, inclusive approach, we're making compassionate, effective mental health care accessible to everyone." The Memphis clinic accepts most major insurance plans in Tennessee, including Aetna, Cigna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Tricare, and others, making high-quality care more accessible and affordable for all. To schedule an appointment or learn more about the Memphis clinic, visit or call (888) 374-5066. Family Care Center is a national leader in mental health services, dedicated to positively impacting the well-being of local communities. Their top-rated, multi-specialty clinicians deliver comprehensive, evidence-based care, providing positive outcomes for patients of all ages. In addition to therapy and psychiatric services, they are at the forefront of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), an innovative treatment for depression and more. Family Care Center is one of the fastest-growing mental health care providers in the U.S, providing patient care, conducting research and offering continuing medical education in their field. With over 40 locations across Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Tennessee and Texas, they continue to expand nationally in collaboration with Revelstoke Capital Partners. View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Family Care Center
The Herald
11-07-2025
- Health
- The Herald
NGOs: NPA must prosecute Mahlangu, Manamela for Life Esidimeni deaths
The two had ignored expert advice, Teffo said. ' The inquest found that the conduct of Ms Qedani Mahlangu and Makgabo Manamela on the face of it caused the tragic deaths of nine mental healthcare users,' said Section27 spokesperson Pearl Nicodemus. 'Today, also marks exactly one year of no action on prosecution from the NPA, despite the judgment from a three-year inquest that concluded in July 2024. 'Section27, the Life Esidimeni family members and the SA Depression and Anxiety Group remind the NPA that the mental healthcare users who died tragic and avoidable deaths while in the care of the state were human beings, with families who loved them and whose dignity and right to life were stolen. 'We remember the lives of Virginia Machpelah, Deborah Phehla, Frans Dekker, Charity Ratsotso, Koketso Mogoerane, Terrence Chaba, Daniel Josiah, Matlakala Motsoahae, and Lucky Maseko and the 135 others who died in this disaster. ' To ensure that we never again see such a disastrous and reckless abuse of public power in our country, the affected families and civil society organisations will continue, until we see justice done, to call on the NPA to prosecute. We urge the NPA to prioritise the prosecution of Ms Mahlangu and Dr Manamela.' After the judgment, the NPA said it would study it 'to determine whether the NPA will institute criminal prosecutions against the two individuals whom the court found can be held liable for the deaths'. SowetanLIVE
Times
10-07-2025
- Business
- Times
Priory Group heavily indebted despite improved trading
The Priory Group, the private equity-owned care business, remains heavily indebted despite an improvement in its trading, its latest accounts show. The business, which makes the majority of is revenue from the public sector, saw its debts and lease liabilities remain at about £1.2 billion while its sales and profit improved. The Priory Group is a provider of mental healthcare and adult social care. A healthcare division focuses on people with various mental health conditions and addiction problems, while its adult care arm provides residential and supported-living services for people with issues including learning disabilities and autism. It also supports older people who require nursing and dementia care. A substantial proportion of its revenue comes from public bodies such as local authorities and NHS providers. It says it offers 'additional bed capacity for the NHS and is therefore seen as an integral part of the mental healthcare system in the UK'.
