Behavioral Health Executives Sound Alarm on Reimbursement Woes, Share Slow Progress with Value-Based Care

The financial and operational pressures facing behavioral health providers are intensifying, with the list of headwinds including rising business costs, regulatory changes and more.

Above all, reimbursement- and payment-related challenges are emerging as the dominant concern among industry executives, according to a recent survey from Behavioral Health Business.

Nearly half of all executives surveyed identified reimbursement and payment issues as the single greatest overall challenge confronting the industry.

This was a sizable increase from 2024, when the same question yielded a slightly lower level of concern.

Secretary Kennedy Renews Public Health Emergency Declaration to Address National Opioid Crisis

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced today that Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. renewed the public health emergency declaration addressing our nation’s opioid crisis, which will allow sustained federal coordination efforts and preserve key flexibilities that enable HHS to continue leveraging expanded authorities to conduct certain activities in response to the opioid overdose crisis.

“Although overdose deaths are starting to decline, opioid-involved overdoses remain the leading cause of drug-related fatalities,” HHS Secretary Kennedy said. “This Administration is going to treat this urgent crisis in American health as the national security emergency that it is. Renewing the Opioid Public Health Emergency Declaration affirms the Administration’s commitment to addressing the opioid overdose crisis and is one of many critical steps we will take to Make America Healthy Again.”

The public health emergency, first declared under President Trump’s leadership in 2017, was set to expire on March 21, 2025. Today’s renewal extends the emergency for 90 days. The declaration of a public health emergency provides the Secretary with certain authorities necessary to respond to the emergency. The Department has relied on this declaration to facilitate voluntary information collections, expedite demonstration projects related to substance use disorder treatment, and expedite support for research on opioid use disorder treatments. These activities facilitate multi-level coordination across the public and private sector alike, which ultimately, will continue to save lives.

While provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicates a 25.5% decrease in overdose deaths in the 12 months ending October 2024 compared with the same period in 2023, approximately 150 Americans die every day from overdose involving illegal, synthetic opioids such as illegally made fentanyl. Overdose remains the leading cause of death among Americans aged 18-44. The Administration and HHS remain committed to preventing substance use initiation, reducing the number of lives lost to overdose, and helping Americans to overcome substance use disorders, achieve recovery, and live healthy lives.

In renewing the PHE declaration, Secretary Kennedy acted under his authority in the Public Health Service Act.

Adult ADHD Prescriptions Still on the Rise, Especially Among Older Women

Prescriptions for ADHD medications have been spiking in recent years, with the sharpest increase among middle-aged and older women. They’re also the least likely to misuse the prescription stimulants, a new study found.

The rise among women ages 35 to 64 has been substantial. At the end of 2022, 1.7 million women in this age group were prescribed stimulants such as Adderall and Ritalin for ADHD, compared to 1.2 million prescriptions in 2019.

There’s been an overall jump in ADHD prescriptions since the pandemic and the rise of telehealth. The new analysis, published in JAMA Psychiatry by researchers at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, also looked into how the medications are being misused — that is, taking more of the drugs than prescribed, taking them at times that differed from what the doctor ordered or using medication from someone else’s prescription. The researchers used data from more than 83,000 adults, ages 18 to 64 who participated in the 2021-2022 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health. Information on prescriptions came from the 2019-2022 IQVIA Total Patient Tracker and National Prescription Audit New to Brand databases.

Trump Administration Extends Opioid Emergency as Fentanyl Deaths Drop

The Trump administration is extending through mid-June an emergency declaration linked to the opioid overdose crisis that was set to expire on Friday.

In a statement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. acknowledged drug deaths in the U.S. "are starting to decline" but said the Trump administration will continue treating the opioid crisis as "the national security emergency that it is."

President Trump has linked fentanyl smuggling to his tariffs against Canada, China and Mexico. In doing so, Trump has often made factually inaccurate claims about the number of drug deaths in the U.S. He's also said repeatedly Canada is a significant source of street fentanyl reaching U.S. communities, which is untrue according to data gathered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.