In July 2019, the California Medicaid (Medi-Cal) Agency, Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) announced how it would support health plan compliance with the US Preventive Services Task Force assessment of sufficient evidence and recommendation to screen and treat to prevent maternal depression. Read more here.

Other states are likely developing similar positions to provide clarity to Medicaid health plans and screening and treating providers on how services should be billed and covered.

Common and Costly Expenditures Associated with the Birth of Children in 2017 Amount to More than $14 Billion

If you ask people what they think the most common medical complication is during and after childbirth, you probably won’t hear mental health issues. Yet maternal mental health (MMH) disorders — including prenatal and postpartum depression and anxiety — top the list, affecting at least one in seven women. In addition to the substantial human toll of these conditions, they come with a hefty price tag, especially because women who have them often go untreated.

Below are the news articles that caught my eye this month. Use the comments feature below to share you thoughts with me.

AHRQ Stats: Depression Screening

Though the US Preventive Service Task Force has recommended depression screening in adults since 2009, fewer than half of all Americans ages 35 and older were screened for depression in 2015, according to the federal Agency for Health Care Research and Quality. Read it here.

Here are my favorite articles since I last shared “What I’m Reading.” Note, I’m eager to get your thoughts on any of these articles, but particularly interested in your opinions about the three articles at the bottom; are you having problems with insurers? Let us know in the comments below.

Pregnancy Specific Anxiety Impacts How Long Women Breastfeed

New research published in June links anxiety and breastfeeding, a link moms have long been sharing concerns about. Read it here.

CDC’s Maternal Mortality Review Data Brief

The Federal agency, The Center for Disease Control (CDC) shared a new brief on Maternal Mortality Review (MMR) with updated 2008-2017 data on pregnancy-related deaths from 14 Maternal Mortality Review Committees (MMRCs). Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah voluntarily shared their data through the Maternal Mortality Review Information Application (MMRIA). MMRIA supports and standardizes record abstraction, documentation of committee decisions, and routine analyses.

The United States has the worst maternal death rates of any developed country, with Black women dying at 3-4 times the rates of white women, this rate remains unchanged when accounting for income, education and economic status. Maternal death rates for women overall in the U.S. doubled in the past 25 years, meaning that women today have a higher risk of dying at childbirth than their mothers, and the disparities that Black women face have been around for decades. For every maternal death in the country, 70 women face a life-threatening and too often, life-altering complication.