Association of Outpatient Behavioral Health Treatment With Medical and Pharmacy Costs in the First 27 Months Following a New Behavioral Health Diagnosis in the US.

Importance: Outpatient behavioral health treatment (OPBHT) is an effective treatment for behavioral health conditions (BHCs) that may also be associated with improved medical health outcomes, but evidence regarding the cost-effectiveness of OPBHT across a large population has not been established.

Objective: To investigate whether individuals newly diagnosed with a BHC who used OPBHT incurred lower medical and pharmacy costs over 15 and 27 months of follow-up compared with those not using OPBHT.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This retrospective cohort study of commercially insured individuals in the US was conducted using administrative insurance claims data for individuals newly diagnosed with 1 or more BHCs between January 1, 2017, and December 31, 2018.

Loneliness in the United States: A 2018 National Panel Survey of Demographic, Structural, Cognitive, and Behavioral Characteristics.

Purpose: To inform health behavior intervention design, we sought to quantify loneliness and its correlates, including social media use, among adults in the United States.

Design: Cross-sectional research panel questionnaire.

Setting: Responses were gathered from individuals in all 50 states surveyed via Internet from February 2018 to March 2018.

Optimizing managed care peer reviews: turning a "Doc to Doc" talk into better advocacy for psychiatric inpatients.

Clinicians often resent behavioral health managed care peer reviews. However, such reviews need not be onerous. This Open Forum, written by managed care physician reviewers, attempts to help attending psychiatrists, specifically those on inpatient units, achieve more satisfying outcomes for patients by adhering to a few basic principles.