Feature article in the latest Rural Monitor describes harm reduction approaches to help reduce health risks related to substance use. It explains how these approaches are being adopted in rural areas.

The use of telehealth among Medicare beneficiaries peaked in 2020 and decreased slightly in 2021; the highest telehealth use was for behavioral health and primary care visits. View this and other trends in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation’s recently released interactive Medicare Telehealth Trends Dashboard, report, upcoming demo, and supplemental documents. You can see Medicare fee-for-service claims data aggregated by beneficiary characteristics visit specialty, year, state, and more. For additional information on telehealth research, visit Telehealth.HHS.gov.

The Growing Provider Shortage: Building the Case for Developing an HP-ET Program is a new resource from the Association of Clinicians for the Underserved to help you “grow your own” workforce. Understanding what roles are currently in demand, and which are likely to increase in demand soon, is critical to assessing what type of Health Professions Education and Training (HP-ET) or other recruitment programs can most benefit a health center. This newly produced ACU STAR² Center document is designed to highlight projected workforce needs based on National Health Service Corps vacancy data and provides an overview of options available to develop or sustain HP-ET programs to meet these needs.

Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner Michael Humphreys announced the Pennsylvania Insurance Department (PID) has updated its resources available for consumers to learn about mental health and substance use disorder (SUD) coverage parity and their benefits and rights under the law. Commissioner Humphreys reiterated that PID’s enforcement of the protections found under parity law is a top priority for the Shapiro Administration. He also encouraged consumers to explore the resources PID has available and to file a complaint with the department if they believe they are not receiving the proper coverage. The updated resources include a new web page designed to help guide consumers to their coverage options, as well as new outreach materials that will help consumers spot red flags in their health plan’s coverage of mental health substance use disorder treatment. The new parity website can be accessed at www.insurance.pa.gov/parity.

The five largest U.S. pharmaceutical companies by market cap — Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, AbbVie, and Pfizer — reported combined earnings of $81.9 billion in 2022, an $8 billion increase from 2021, according to a new analysis by Accountable. The US. The report comes as major players in the pharmaceutical industry try to buck provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that would allow Medicare to directly negotiate the prices of certain drugs with manufacturers in an effort to cut costs for older Americans. An analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found the IRA drug pricing provisions will reduce the federal deficit by $237 billion from 2022 to 2031. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is set to announce the first 10 drugs by Sept. 1, and their newly negotiated prices will take effect in 2026.

Current shortages of sterile injectable drugs are likely to worsen, following a tornado that seriously damaged a Pfizer plant in North Carolina that manufactures nearly 25% of the nation’s supply of these drugs. In recent months providers have reported a shortage of around 300 drugs, many of which are sterile injectable ones, such as painkillers, anti-infectives, surgical muscle relaxants, anesthesia, and therapeutics. It is currently unclear which specific drugs will be most impacted by the tornado damage.

The Biden administration announced new proposed rules to reinforce legislation requiring insurance companies to cover mental health benefits to the same degree as medical and surgical benefits, with administration officials citing the stark lack of access Americans have to mental health care. The proposed rule reinforces the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act’s (MHPAEA) fundamental goal of ensuring that families have the same access to mental health and substance use benefits as they do physical health benefits. Specifically, the proposed rule would require health plans to make changes when they are providing inadequate access to mental health care, make it clear what health plans can and cannot do, and close existing loopholes.