988-Hotline Counselors Air Concerns: More Training Needed to Juggle a Mix of Calls

In the year and a half since its launch, 988 — the country’s easy-to-remember, three-digit suicide and crisis hotline — has received about 8.1 million calls, texts, and chats.

While much attention has been focused on who is reaching out and whether the shortened number has accomplished its goal of making services more accessible to people in emotional distress, curiosity is growing about the people taking those calls.

An estimated 10,000 to 11,000 counselors work at more than 200 call centers nationwide, fielding calls from people experiencing anxiety, depression, or suicidal thoughts.

CMS Finalizes Rule Setting Prior Authorization Deadlines for Payers

The Biden administration moved Wednesday to force insurance companies to give specific reasons for denying coverage, and to speed up the pre-approval process in general. The new rule applies to health insurance companies that offer Medicare, Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program, and Obamacare plans but not commercial plans. The rule concerns so-called prior authorization requests and will require insurers to return urgent requests within 72 hours and non-urgent requests within seven days.  Under the rule, payers must also report prior authorization metrics annually.

All told, the agency expects the changes will result in approximately $15 billion in savings over 10 years by reducing the health care system's administrative burden and improving health outcomes, noting that decision timelines for some payers will be halved.

Ohio House Republicans Target ‘Replacement’ Levies Used by Schools, Mental Health Boards, Libraries

Lawmakers proposed legislation that would block local governments from proposing “replacement” levies typically used to fund operations at townships, schools, libraries, mental health and addiction services boards, and others.

When an existing local levy runs its course, local government bodies have a handful of options: they can leave it there, and residents’ tax bills decrease; they can propose a “renewal” levy, which extends the ongoing tax at the same millage; they can propose an ongoing “replacement” levy, which extends the tax at the same millage but resets the millage to reflect increased property values; or they can renew the levy with an increase in the millage, which also updates for new property values.

House Bill 344 would eliminate that replacement levy option, while still leaving the renewal options intact. Rep. Thomas Hall, a Madison Twp. Republican, pitched the idea to lawmakers as means of straightening out reasonable confusion from voters as to whether a levy will increase their net tax bill.

“‘New levy’ and ‘increase’ are easy to understand,” he said during testimony on the bill. “But many voters treat renewal and replacement as synonyms when they function entirely differently.”

The sponsors and the bills backers said this confusion serves as rationale to eliminate – rather than rename or otherwise clarify – replacement levies.

VA Says Nearly 50K Veterans Used Emergency Suicide Prevention Program in its First Year

Nearly 50,000 veterans made use of an emergency suicide prevention program that was launched by the Department of Veterans Affairs last year.

The VA announced Wednesday that 49,714 veterans and former service members took advantage of a new benefit that allowed them to go to any VA or non-VA health facility to get free emergency care if they were experiencing an acute suicidal crisis.

The department said the benefit not only offered potentially life-saving health care, it saved more than $64 million in health care costs.

The department said the new policy allowed those experiencing a suicidal crisis to get necessary care, including emergency room visits, up to 30 days of inpatient or crisis residential care, up to 90 days of outpatient care and transportation costs.