August 7, 2024

Bipartisan lawmakers in the House and Senate sent a letter to President Biden urging him to approve a new treatment that uses MDMA with talk therapy to treat PTSD.  The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) faces an August 11 deadline for deciding whether to grant Lykos Therapeutics approval for the treatment. In June, an FDA advisory panel overwhelmingly recommended against approving the treatment, citing missing safety data, allegations of misconduct in clinical trials, and difficulty parsing how much the reported benefits stemmed from the drug versus the accompanying therapy. (Articles here and here)

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Crain’s Health Pulse, 8/7

Hospitals and clinics on Staten Island that provide substance use prevention, treatment and recovery services are getting a $12 million cut of the city’s opioid settlement funds, in an attempt to restore funds to the borough after officials inequitably distributed the money.

Eight hospitals, addiction treatment clinics and community organizations will receive a joint $3 million annually for the next four years to spend on programs that target substance use disorders. The new money, expected to flow to providers next month, is meant to increase access to medications for opioid use disorder and syringe exchange programs on Staten Island, which has the second-highest rate of overdose deaths in the city.

Northwell Health’s Staten Island University Hospital, Richmond University Medical Center and six nonprofit organizations are among the awardees. The awardees of the new opioid settlement funding were announced by Assemblyman Sam Pirozzolo, a Republican lawmaker who represents parts of Staten Island, at a press conference Tuesday.

The new funding is part of a special distribution from Mayor Eric Adams, who recognized that Staten Island received an inequitable share of New York City’s initial opioid settlement fund distribution. The Adams administration allocated $150 million in settlement funds to city agencies in June 2022, including New York City Health + Hospitals, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

Elected officials and addiction providers on Staten Island criticized the city’s spending plan, stating that the borough would be boxed out because it does not have a public hospital. Adams offered the $12 million sum as a remedy, making providers on Staten Island the only ones eligible for a cut of settlement funds through a competitive bidding process.

The spending shortfalls that affected Staten Island drew attention to the city’s opaque decision-making process surrounding the opioid settlement funds, which were obtained from lawsuits with drug companies to pay for their role in the city’s opioid epidemic. The city has received $90.6 million in settlement funds so far, according to a recent report from the Health Department. But it is not clear how much money it has spent on specific programs and services.

The money to Staten Island providers will fund innovative programs that are attempting to mitigate the overdose crisis, said Joe Conte, executive director of the Staten Island Performing Provider System, a network of medical and behavioral health organizations owned by Northwell Health and an awardee of the new funds.

Conte’s organization plans to use the funds to improve an existing program that identifies people at risk of overdose and intervenes before they potentially lose their lives. The program, called Hotspotting the Overdose Epidemic, has enrolled more than 600 people since it launched in 2021.

“Financially, it’s not a lot of money per se,” Conte said. “But it’s four years of funding. The sustainability factor is really important.”

The guaranteed cash flow could help organizations hire two or three staff members to run a new project, assuring providers that they’ll have the money to pay for salaries during a continuing workforce shortage, Conte said. 

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Attn: PROS Programs

Please see the attached document for Frequently Asked Questions related to PROS redesign. This document will be updated periodically as we work towards implementation. FAQs, trainings, and other pertinent resources and guidance can be found at the Personalized Recovery Oriented Services (PROS) Special Initiatives Page

Please continue to direct any questions you may have about redesign to the PROS mailbox PROS@omh.ny.gov

Thank you,

The Bureau of Rehabilitation, Treatment, and Care Coordination

Office of Mental Health

44 Holland Avenue

Albany, NY 12229

 ————————————-The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released new data showing that the national uninsured rate rose from 7.7 percent to 8.2 percent during the first quarter of this year. In total, more than 1.6 million people lost health coverage, bringing the total number of uninsured to 27.1 million as of March 2024. Uninsured rate hit a record low of 7.2 percent last year, but coverage gains stemming from pandemic-era policies are starting to slip — and could fall further if health costs continue to rise and enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies aren’t renewed next year. (Articles here, here, and here)
———————————According to a study in JAMA Internal Medicine, co-pays could be a barrier to addressing the increasing prevalence of chronic health conditions among the incarcerated. Of state prison residents, 90 percent were in facilities requiring co-payments, including 63 percent in facilities with co-payments exceeding one week’s prison wage. Among respondents with at least one chronic mental health condition who had been incarcerated a year or longer, 29.3 percent had never received mental health treatment during their incarceration. Approximately 10 percent with at least one chronic condition and who had been incarcerated longer than one year had not seen a health care clinician during their incarceration. (Study here)