New York State plans to open 24-hour mental health urgent care facilities. Spectrum Health, who currently operates as Erie County’s only "Urgent Mental Health and Addiction Care Clinic," has seen the need for services rise since opening.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo highlighted the need for more accessible mental health services during a speech about the upcoming budget last week.

"We are launching 24-hour urgent care centers. This is an unforeseen, but very real byproduct of COVID-- has been the mental health, the stress, the isolation, the addiction problems, the domestic violence problems," Cuomo said. "And we have to recognize it for what it is and we have to address it." Read more here.

CASA-Trinity, Inc. has been awarded $2,121,400 from the New York State Office of Addiction Services and Supports (NYS OASAS) and its fiscal agent, the Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene (RFMH), on behalf of Your Heath Partners of the Finger Lakes, IPA (Independent Provider Association). The award is for network services in Monroe, Livingston, Steuben, Chemung and Tioga counties. CASA-Trinity operates inpatient, outpatient and detox facilities in Hornell, with the Wellness Center Residential Program and offices in Dansville. Read more here.

On average, people with behavioral health conditions cost payers about $875 more per member per month than those without behavioral health conditions. Yet, studies show that less than half of the patients who need behavioral health treatment actually receive it.

The health care system’s fee-for-service nature is one reason for that, as is the massive supply-demand mismatch in behavioral health. Behavioral stakeholders have often mused that addressing the former could help improve the latter; however, Katherine Knutson, the senior vice president at United Health Group and the CEO of Optum Behavioral Care, believes the issue is a little more complicated than that. Read more here.

April 16, 2 - 3 pm, SAMHSA's GAINS Center

April 19, 2 - 3:30 pm, CCSI

April 20, 1 - 3 pm, SAMHSA's GAINS Center

April 21, 12 - 1 pm, PsychU

April 21 - 22, CCSI

April 22, 2 - 3 pm, SAMHSA's GAINS Center

April 22, 2 - 3 pm, COSSAP

April 27, 10 - 11:30 am, OMH

April 27, 2 - 3:30 pm, National Council for Behavioral Health

April 28, 12 - 1:30 pm, Suicide Prevention Center of NYS

April 28, 3 - 4:15 pm, FORE

April 28, 3 - 4:30 pm, CMS

April 29, 1:30 - 3 pm, SAMHSA's GAINS Center

April 29, 3 - 4:30 pm, National Council for Behavioral Health

May 4, 3 - 4 pm, Mother Cabrini Health Foundation

May 6, 3 - 4 pm, OMH

May 13, 1 - 2 pm, OMH

May 13, 1:30 - 3 pm, SAMHSA's GAINS Center

May 18, 2:30 - 4 pm, SAMHSA's GAINS Center

May 19, 11 am - 12 pm, OMH

May 26, 10 - 11 am, OMH

May 27, 2 - 4 pm, SAMHSA's GAINS Center

April 20: 11:30 am - 1 pm, GTM

April 21: 9 - 10:30 am, GTM

May 5: 8 - 9 am, GTM

May 6: 2 - 3 pm, GTM

May 11: 10 - 11:30 am, GTM

May 11: 2 - 5 pm, GTM

May 13: 11 am - 12 pm, GTM

May 18: 11:30 am - 1 pm, GTM

May 31

Contact CLMHD for all Call In and GoToMeeting (GTM) information, 518.462.9422 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a new push to combat a silent but devastating effect of the COVID-19 pandemic’s toll on mental health, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer pushed the feds to ‘quick release’ $5 billion dollars he worked to include in the recently-passed American Rescue Plan (ARP) so that the funds can give New Yorkers—and the mental health providers they rely upon—the help they’re asking for amid rising need.

Schumer said that, on average, three times more people than last year at this time report struggling with mental health symptoms like depression, anxiety, drug use and more. Schumer said that one of the biggest problems to beating these feelings and reclaiming mental health depends on timely access to care and overall access to care. He explained that with the ‘quick release’ of these fed funds, New York will see a surge in mental health support programs and increased access to a variety of care options. Read more here.

Recovery Uncovered is informative yet hilarious, a brutally honest and surprisingly heartwarming podcast about life in recovery. Your hosts are Michael "MHAB Mike" Carpenter, 30+ years sober, and Betsy Vicencio, mother to a daughter seven years sober. Nothing is off limits – Mike and Betsy cover the highs, lows, and everything in between of what happens after you get sober. Recovery Uncovered offers two unique perspectives in addiction recovery commentary, plus Mike and Betsy welcome their friends and other exciting guests to share relatable stories or expertise about recovery.

In this episode, Mike and Betsy are joined by guest Richelle Gregory, Director of Community Services in Clinton County, NY. Richelle is an expert on trauma, crisis, and mental health – we explore their connection to addiction, co-occurring disorders, and behavioral health. Click here to listen to the podcast, or click here to watch the video.

There was a nearly 6 percent drop in suicides in the United States last year, the largest annual decline in close to four decades, preliminary government data show.

While the extent of that decline could be smaller when final figures are available, officials expect there will still be a significant decrease, despite concerns there would be more suicides due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Associated Press reported.

Additional articles of interest: A Decreasing Pandemic Suicide Rate Doesn't Tell the Full Story, Experts Say

A substantial proportion of people with opioid use disorder in the United States have not received any form of medication-assisted treatment, according to results of a model-based cost-effectiveness analysis published in JAMA Psychiatry.

Expanded access to medication-assisted treatment combined with other interventions may lead to cost-saving reductions in morbidity and mortality from opioid use disorder, researchers found. Read more here.

Additional article of interest: Guide for Future Directions for the Addiction and OUD Treatment Ecosystem

More than 87,000 Americans died of drug overdoses over the 12-month period that ended in September, according to preliminary federal data, eclipsing the toll from any year since the opioid epidemic began in the 1990s.

The surge represents an increasingly urgent public health crisis, one that has drawn less attention and fewer resources while the nation has battled the coronavirus pandemic.

Deaths from overdoses started rising again in the months leading up to the coronavirus pandemic — after dropping slightly in 2018 for the first time in decades — and it is hard to gauge just how closely the two phenomena are linked. But the pandemic unquestionably exacerbated the trend, which grew much worse last spring: The biggest jump in overdose deaths took place in April and May, when fear and stress were rampant, job losses were multiplying and the strictest lockdown measures were in effect. Read more here.

Additional article of interest: Co-involvement of Stimulants, Opioids in Overdose Deaths Rise in Latest CDC Data

Gender and age differences are revealed in a new analysis that finds nearly seven in ten (69%) young women ages 18 to 29 say the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted their mental health, compared to smaller shares of women who are older and men across all age groups.

By mid-2020 about half (53%) of adults reported that worry and pandemic-related stress had negatively impacted their mental health. Now with millions of U.S. residents getting vaccinated against COVID-19, the latest analysis from the KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor finds 47% of adults continue to report negative mental health impacts, and about a third of this group (or 15% of adults overall) report unmet needs for mental health care. The new report highlights recent data on the mental health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic across gender, age, race, and income. Read more here.

For hospitalized adults with comorbid substance use disorders (SUDs), patient navigation services reduce readmissions and emergency department use, according to a study published online April 6 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Jan Gryczynski, Ph.D., from the Friends Research Institute in Baltimore, and colleagues examined whether patient navigation services reduce hospital readmissions in a randomized trial involving 400 hospitalized adults with comorbid SUDs. Read more here.

Peer recovery support specialists can play a critical role in reentry programs for people with behavioral health needs, from engaging participants in needed treatment and services to connecting them to prosocial activities. In Erie County, New York, the Erie County Jails Co-occurring Enhancement Reentry Initiative is a partnership between the Erie County Sheriff’s Office (ECSO) and BestSelf Behavioral Health, which is supported by Second Chance Act funding. The program seeks to strengthen, expand, and better coordinate reentry services for incarcerated people who have co-occurring substance use disorders and mental illnesses. Read more here.

Every spring, I and my colleague Dr. Nora Volkow, Director of NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), join with leaders across the country in the Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit. Our role is to discuss NIH’s continued progress in tackling our nation’s opioid crisis. Because of the continued threat of COVID-19 pandemic, we joined in virtually for the second year in a row.

While the demands of the pandemic have been challenging for everyone, biomedical researchers have remained hard at work to address the opioid crisis. Among the many ways that NIH is supporting these efforts is through its Helping to End Addiction Long-Term (HEAL) Initiative, which is directing more than $1.5 billion to researchers and communities across the country. Read more here.