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Welcome to The Census, your weekly roundup of what matters in behavioral healthcare.

Today, we’re breaking down:

• Health care’s IT vulnerabilities

• All your latest news headlines in under two minutes

Let’s dive in.

- Shân

P.S. First time reading? Welcome! Sign up here.

Reading time: ~3 minutes.

On our radar

What we’re watching this week 

🤔 CrowdStrike’s internet meltdown raises serious concerns

We’re still reeling from the Change hack that wreaked havoc on behavioral health care providers. Now CrowdStrike’s cybersecurity fiasco sheds even more light on the industry’s IT vulnerabilities.

We’ll get straight to the point:

• Health care’s on a long quest to be more tech-forward (fab)

• Also, interoperable — so everyone tends to use a few key platforms 

• Both, unfortunately, increase the risk of IT crashes 

This was painfully apparent last Friday afternoon when 1M+ devices in health care firms across the country were affected by CrowdStrike’s little crisis faulty software update. 

A good question. And one not really within providers’ control. Because even if you cover your bases by hiring two companies for the same service, they’re likely to use the same software — and you’re still out of luck in an outage.  

So where to from here? Well, experts say we’re “too far down the interconnectivity train to completely pull it back.” 

But managing certain aspects in-house could help mitigate risk — at least until regulators and policymakers respond with new guidance or standards.

• Here’s a call to action from nine former US cabinet secretaries, released Monday

The silver lining, perhaps, is that we aren’t in aviation. Those folks must’ve had a truly wild weekend.  ✈️

Let’s get your news headlines. 

Catch up quick

This week’s top stories

Latest news

📈 Rising demand for behavioral health services is a ‘key inflator’ driving up health plan costs for 2025, says PwC. 

💻 Many qualified ABA clinicians are turning to telehealth, and advocacy will be key to getting virtual ABA services covered.

🚘 Mobile methadone vans are increasing MAT access — at $375k a van. 

🤔 Doctors remain reluctant to treat addiction despite the growing need, thanks to institutional environment barriers.

🍄 Many ‘legal’ mushroom products actually contain illegal hallucinogens and are causing hospitalizations, including that of a three-year-old child.

💡 The autism industry’s course correction couldn’t have come at a more opportune time, experts say (expect an uptick in deal activity for H2).

👀 Optum has reportedly laid off behavioral health managers and other roles in a restructuring effort that may have impacted more than 2k employees.

😕 Regulations like the No Surprises Act have failed to improve ghost networks, a new study shows.

❤️ A California medical group treating only homeless patients generated $15M+ last year. 

😞 Medical debt is fueling the mental health treatment gap as one in four Americans with depression and anxiety say they can't pay their medical bills.

📲 Meta has finally agreed to give researchers access to Instagram data — allowing them to study the app’s impact on teen mental health.

🧒 Children with an autistic older sibling are 20% more likely to develop autism themselves, new research says.

👂 Spark Biomedical is developing a wearable ear device to help newborns, “the most innocent lives of the opioid epidemic,” recover from opioid exposure.

🧑‍⚕️ The Biden administration launched an initiative to build a multi-state social worker licensure compact to help boost behavioral health access. 

🚨 North Carolina’s Medicaid funds could start running dry in the spring as annual budgets haven’t been adjusted. 

🏥 These 19 rural hospitals are keeping their independence through interdependence (it’s our new tongue twister); here’s why.

✅ Maryland approved $148M+ in state spending reductions to redirect more money to child care and Medicaid.

🔎 Lyra Health announced a new way to proactively identify and mitigate social determinants of health and connect members to resources.

💊 A Pennsylvania hospital has opened an opioid-free surgery program for patients who want alternative options for pain management.

🧠 Hmm, that’s interesting: A new brain scan study shows what a psychedelic trip looks like in real-time (from a neural activity POV, y’all). 

Expansions, launches, & partnerships

🎉 Avisa Recovery announced the launch of their HealingUS™ Model of Care in a third location in New Jersey — providing PHP, IOP, and OP programs.

🤖 Greenspace Health launched MBC 2.0, an AI-driven platform for behavioral health providers to increase the impact of measurement-based care.

🤝 Intermountain Health partnered with NeuroFlow to improve behavioral health integration in primary care for patients in Colorado.

Funding rounds & investor moves

🤑 Commure will buy clinical documentation startup Augmedix in a $139M all-cash deal.

💰 PE-backed ABA Connect acquired ABA Therapy of Houston, expanding its network to 12 clinics across Texas and Colorado.

💡 Anticipate increased PE activity in behavioral health moving forward as market conditions become more favorable — although state-level actions and federal scrutiny will (of course) be a complicating factor, experts say. 

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Studies & opinion pieces

🧠 Slow-release ketamine tablets can improve hard-to-treat depression (study).

🌿 Marijuana use before and early in pregnancy has been linked to serious maternal complications (study).

💔 Drug-use stigma among addiction treatment providers is a barrier to care, but state policymakers can help create change (opinion).

💡 To overcome the overdose crisis, addiction treatment must be integrated into the health care system (opinion).

📋 Routine mental health screening can save lives — and AI can make it part of primary care (opinion). 

😯 Speaking of AI, an AI-driven digital program for generalized anxiety delivered results comparable to traditional human-led therapy (study). 

🤖 And, here’s how to evaluate and implement potential AI solutions as a provider (opinion). 

🏥  Why value-based behavioral health care is easier in acute settings (opinion). 

🧑‍⚕️ Higher RN presence in nursing homes increases antipsychotic drug use, and cuts hospitalizations and ED visits (study).

That’s it for this week! See you next Wednesday with the latest headlines.

- Shân

P.S. You can email me here if you want to share any feedback, or let me know about a business I should be featuring.

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