A combination of therapy and antidepressants appears to best help people with severe but short-term depression, a new study reports. Four out of five people suffering from severe depression for less than two years experienced full recovery when treated with cognitive therapy plus antidepressant medication, reported HealthDay.com. On the other hand, the combination didn't work much better than drugs alone in helping people with mild depression or those with severe and chronic depression lasting longer than two years, said lead author Steven Hollon, a professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Full Story

A recently published study suggests a new class of drug may act as a dimmer switch to control schizophrenia, reported PsychCentral.com. The approach is heralded as a method to manage the symptoms of schizophrenia without some of the side effects associated with current anti-psychotic medicines. Full Story

Veterans who receive mental health screening during primary care visits are generally getting adequate follow-up treatment, but the process for acquiring care could be improved, finds a new study in General Hospital Psychiatry. The study examined primary care screening for depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and alcohol misuse at a large Veterans Affairs (VA) medical center. Full Story

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced that primary care has been added to the services available to Veterans through VA's Patient-Centered Community Care (PC3) contracts, a key and evolving part of the non-VA medical care program.  Eligible Veterans are already able to access inpatient specialty care, outpatient specialty care, mental health care, limited emergency care and limited newborn care for female Veterans following childbirth under PC3. Full Story

Older military veterans who have suffered a serious head injury are more likely to be diagnosed with dementia than uninjured veterans, according to a new study. Full Story

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell announced July 31, 2014 $54.6 million in Affordable Care Act funding to support 221 health centers in 47 states and Puerto Rico to establish or expand behavioral health services for over 450,000 people nationwide. Health centers will use these new funds for efforts such as hiring new mental health professionals, adding mental health and substance use disorder health services, and employing integrated models of primary care. Full Story

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a rule July 31, 2014 finalizing Oct. 1, 2015 as the new compliance date for health care providers, health plans, and health care clearinghouses to transition to ICD-10, the tenth revision of the International Classification of Diseases. This deadline allows providers, insurance companies and others in the health care industry time to ramp up their operations to ensure their systems and business processes are ready to go on Oct. 1, 2015. Full Story

U.S. President Barack Obama signed a $16.3 billion bill on August 7 designed to provide veterans with more timely medical care and fix problems in the scandal-plagued Veterans Affairs department, reported Reuters. Full Story

Congressmen Bill Foster (D-IL) and Sean Maloney (D-NY) have introduced legislation to increase low-income and uninsured patients' access to inpatient rehabilitation services for heroin and other opioid abuse. The Expanding Opportunities for Recovery Act (H.R. 5339) would establish a grant program under the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, in which states may use grant funds to provide residential or inpatient opioid addiction treatment for qualified individuals. Full Story

Legislation recently introduced in the Senate would authorize millions of dollars in overdose prevention programming and research in an effort to curb the growing trend of opioid overdose deaths. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 100 people die every day in the United States due to an opioid drug overdose. The Overdose Prevention Act (S. 2755), introduced by Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) with four cosponsors, would support prevention programs to reduce drug overdose deaths, create a task force to recommend a national public health campaign to Congress and authorize funding to research and test new treatment and prevention methods. Full Story

Mental and behavioral health social workers would be eligible for federal loan repayment benefits under new legislation introduced by Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA) with 70 cosponsors. The Health Equity and Accountability Act of 2014 (H.R.5294) adds these professionals to existing loan repayment programs, a move designed to bolster the behavioral health workforce. It also requires the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities and the Institute of Medicine to conduct a study on "mental and behavioral health disparities in racial and ethnic minority groups" and issue recommendations for improvement to Congress. Full Story

Nurse practitioners in Kentucky are now able to prescribe some medications without having a collaborative agreement with a physician, making it easier for them to open their own practices, reported Nurse.com. The new state law, which took effect July 15, states after four years of prescribing under a collaborative agreement with a physician, NPs no longer need the agreement to prescribe routine medications. Controlled substances, including oxycodone, testosterone and cough syrup with codeine, still require a collaborative agreement. About 2,000 of the state’s 5,410 NPs have an agreement to prescribe these more restrictive drugs, according to the Kentucky Board of Nursing. Full Story

A vetoed bill that would have given nurse practitioners in Nebraska more independence will come up for debate again next year in the Legislature, reported The Washington Times. Sen. Sue Crawford of Bellevue said she plans to again introduce the measure, which Gov. Dave Heineman vetoed in the last session despite strong support from lawmakers. Full Story

The American Association of Nurse Practitioners announced that it is urging new VA Secretary Robert McDonald to give full-practice authority to nurse practitioners to help improve patient access to health care within the troubled VA system. Full Story

The American Psychiatric Nurses Association is Accredited as a provider of continuing nursing education by the
American Nurses Credentialing Center's Commission on Accreditation.