Our Health Policy Matters

Would you send your mother to a pediatrician for her arthritis, or your child to a geriatrician for his well-baby exam? Probably not – unless there were no other provider in town. But some new reports from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) suggest that something akin to that is happening every day to people with mental illnesses. Two reports – Costs for Hospital Stays in the United States, 2010 and Most Frequent Conditions in U.S. Hospitals, 2010 – were released in January 2013.  The third, Most Frequent Procedures Performed in U.S. Hospitals, 2010 , was released in February. They make for fascinating reading, with an unexpected twist at the end.  Spoiler alert – mood disorders are among the most common reasons for hospitalizations for people under 65.  But mood disorders aren’t driving the increase in hospital costs, because the procedures hospitals most often perform have nothing to do with treating people with mood disorder...

Would you send your mother to a pediatrician for her arthritis, or your child to a geriatrician for his well-baby exam? Probably not – unless there were no other provider in town. But some new reports from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) suggest that something akin to that is happening every day to people with mental illnesses. Two reports – Costs for Hospital Stays in the United States, 2010 and Most Frequent Conditions in U.S. Hospitals, 2010 – were released in January 2013.  The third, Most Frequent Procedures Performed in U.S. Hospitals, 2010 , was released in February. They make for fascinating reading, with an unexpected twist at the end.  Spoiler alert – mood disorders are among the most common reasons for hospitalizations for people under 65.  But mood disorders aren’t driving the increase in hospital costs, because the procedures hospitals most often perform have nothing to do with treating people with mood disorder...