Weekend Update

David Ermer–Congress, Mental health care, SCOTUS, U.S. Healthcare–

From Washington, DC,

From the public health and medical research front,

  • CNN reports
    • “For some people with depression, finding the right medication can be a process of trial-and-error lasting for months or even years, which can worsen symptoms.
    • “But what if doctors, when diagnosing someone with depression, could assess exactly how depression is affecting a patient’s brain and prescribe a treatment that gets it right the first time?
    • “Scientists may be a step closer to that reality, thanks to new research that has identified six subtypes — or “biotypes” — of major depression via brain imaging combined with machine learning. The study, published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, also tested how three of those biotypes responded to different antidepressants and therapies.”
  • The Washington Post published one of its occasional Medical Mysteries articles. In this case, the Post explains why a breastfeeding mother experience crippling back pain.

From the U.S. health business front,

  • NPR Shots’ “bill of the month” features a Texas urgent care center bill.
    • “One evening last December, Tieqiao Zhang felt severe stomach pain.
    • “After it subsided later that night, he thought it might be food poisoning. When the pain returned the next morning, Zhang realized the source of his pain might not be as “simple as bad food.”
    • “He didn’t want to wait for an appointment with his regular doctor, but he also wasn’t sure if the pain warranted emergency care, he said.
    • “Zhang, 50, opted to visit Parkland Health’s Urgent Care Emergency Center, a clinic near his home in Dallas where he’d been treated in the past. It’s on the campus of Parkland, the city’s largest public hospital, which has a separate emergency room.
    • “He believed the clinic was an urgent care center, he said.”
  • In short, this in-network facility, which Mr. Zhang visited. twice, turned out to be an extension of Parkland’s emergency room, and he was hit with a $19,543 bill on which he owed $1,000 in copayments. People should be placed on notice when they will be billed at hospital rates.
  • The Wall Street Journal adds,
    • “Rising healthcare prices have long eroded American wages. They are doing that by eating into jobs. 
    • “Companies shed workers in the year after local hospitals raise their prices, new research found. Higher hospital prices pushed up premiums for employees’ health insurance, which businesses help pay for. 
    • “The new study, scheduled to be published Monday as a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, is a comprehensive look at one-way companies manage those higher premiums: cutting payrolls. 
    • “Employers that face increases in healthcare spending respond by laying off workers who they can no longer afford to retain,” said Zarek Brot-Goldberg, an economist at the University of Chicago and one of the researchers involved in the study. 
  • Fortune Well points out,
    • “Just what is the wellness level of today’s corporate workforce? That all depends on who you ask.
    • “Because while C-suite executives overwhelmingly believe their employees are feeling mentally healthy, professionally fostered, and personally satisfied and included, many workers themselves would beg to differ.
    • “That’s according to the findings of the third annual Workplace Well-being report from Deloitte. The audit and tax consultancy firm collaborated with independent researchers Workplace Intelligence to survey 3,150 executives, managers and workers across four countries (with 57% of respondents from the U.S., and others from the U.K., Canada, and Australia) to check in on the state of human sustainability—which is the degree to which an organization values people and leaves them with greater health and well-being, stronger skills for employability, opportunities for advancement, and a heightened connection to purpose. 
    • “A whopping 82% of executives believe their company is advancing human sustainability in general—but only 56% of workers agree.
    • “Other gulfs in understanding, according to the findings: Around 90% of executives believe working for their company has a positive effect on worker well-being, skills development, career advancement, inclusion and belonging, and their sense of purpose and meaning; only 60% of workers agree.
  • On the bright side, a majority of the workers are in the agreement with the C-suite execs. It could be worse.