Crash Deaths Down in Arizona & Across the US
In Arizona, we’ve been able to decrease the rate of deaths from car, truck and motorcycle crashes by 43% in the last 4 years, from about 19 deaths per 100,000 in 2005 to 11 per 100,000 Arizonans in 2009. While this is good progress, we still have a long way to go. Crashes are still the leading cause of death [...]
AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) News
Our AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) uses about $10M of federal funds to provide medicine to treat HIV and prevent related infections to low-income folks with HIV who have limited or no coverage from private insurance, AHCCCS or Medicare. Applicants for the program need to show that their annual income is less than 300% of federal poverty level and be [...]
“Health Tourism”
I attended the “First Forum of Health and Retirement Tourism” at the beginning of September in Alamos, Sonora. The meeting was part of a Sonora’s health tourism initiative that’s focused on improving the retirement infrastructure, providing more opportunities for “Baby Boomers” to retire in Sonora. They also have a goal of building an infrastructure for Assisted Living so that folks [...]
AHCCCS Acute Care Enrollee’s to be Automatically Enrolled in RBHAs
Beginning October 1, Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System will automatically enroll all Acute Care members into their local Regional Behavioral Health Authority (RBHA) or Tribal RBHA (T/RBHA). The plan eliminates the need for a separate administrative enrollment with the T/RBHA (and the associated paperwork) and streamlines the delivery of services, better integrate physical & behavioral health care. The T/RBHAs will also assume [...]
Behavioral Health Services in SE Arizona
Folks that receive publicly-funded behavioral health services in Cochise, Santa Cruz, Greenlee and Graham Counties will soon transition to a new Regional Behavioral Health Authority (RBHA). In March, ADHS awarded contracts for all of the areas outside of Maricopa County. We awarded the contract for Cochise, Santa Cruz, Greenlee and Graham Counties to Cenpatico Behavioral Health of Arizona (Cenpatico) but [...]
Arizona Breaking Through the National Smoking Trend
A new report from the CDC this week showed that the smoking rate across the US has stayed flat at about 20% over the last 5 years. Not so in Arizona, where we’ve decreased from 20% in 2005 to 16% in 2009, according to our latest BRFS report. As is the case across the country, the folks in Arizona that [...]