The Southern Hemisphere has its flu season during our Summer- so every year around now we watch influenza activity “down under” to get an idea of what we might expect for our upcoming flu season. Here’s the scoop right now. Flu south of the equator has already peaked and continues to decline. There’s been a [...]
Today, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released information about an infection some folks were getting because of the ink used in their tattoos. It reminds me that there are some good practices that folks who want tattoos can ask their artist about - I wrote about it last year in Tattoo You? Regardless [...]
I’ve written several times about the importance of laying the strong foundation for integration effort through our rule making process. Three drafts in and countless hours later, the behavioral health integration rulemaking process is beginning to take shape. It was just last fall when we took the show on the road and traveled the state promoting [...]
Please join me in welcoming Cara Christ, MD as our new Division of Licensing Services chief. Cara has agreed to share her talents as the new Assistant Director for Licensing as well as serving as the Agency Chief Medical Officer. Also, thanks a million to Colby Bower who's been doing an excellent job serving as interim director for licensing since Alan [...]
The future health insurance exchange under the Affordable Care Act will need to offer an Essential Benefit Package. In fact, most health insurance plans will need to cover each state’s Essential Benefit Package starting New Year’s Day in 2014. There are 10 key service categories that future plans will need to cover- including behavioral health services. States need [...]
The Affordable Care Act (aka health care reform) will establish health insurance exchanges in each state- providing folks (and small business employees) an opportunity to get health insurance coverage starting 1/1/14. The future exchanges will provide competitive marketplaces for folks to directly compare and buy private health insurance based on price, quality, and other things. The law [...]
Many of our Stakeholders and the folks that we serve have asked about how Arizona and Federal laws affect the kinds of services that the ADHS provides. The answer is (of course) “it depends.” It depends on what kind of benefit or service you’re talking about. Tom Salow, Lynn Golder and others have put together [...]
We’ve been implementing an evidence-based practice called Non-Violent Crisis Intervention as our operational model at the AZ State Hospital for the last few months- and we’re already seeing dramatic results. It's a best practice for early intervention and de-escalation created by the Crisis Prevention Institute. It’s based on teamwork and training. By using a cohesive team that’s [...]
A new public health archive called CDC Stacks opened their on-line doors this week. CDC Stacks contains documents spanning the history of CDC from issue 1 of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report to the most current CDC guidelines and recommendations. The library is at http://stacks.cdc.gov. Dig in- or at least put it in your Favorites.
Health-e-Arizona is an on-line benefits application for Arizona residents. Folks can apply for AHCCCS Health Insurance coverage, KidsCare, KidsCare II, Nutrition Assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly called food stamps) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families cash assistance using the on-line Health-e-Arizona system. We encourage anybody that’s interested in finding out whether they’re eligible for any of [...]
