January 21, 2011
A national primary care depression treatment initiative sponsored by Columbia University in collaboration with several insurers is proving effective, program officials say. Dr. Christopher Dennis, regional medical and clinical director for ValueOptions, said the TeenScreen National Center for Mental Health Checkups at Columbia is hearing from some physicians that they are now detecting depression in patients they have been seeing for years. “Some are saying they can’t believe they never noticed that before in these patients,” he said. According to program literature, there are now 1,364 sites in the U.S., including 266 in New York, where providers are administering depression screening questionnaires to patients as young as 11. In addition to ValueOptions, the 2-year-old program is sponsored by EmblemHealth and Kaiser Permanente. Dr. Dennis said the program leaves it up to the physician to decide what follow-up care is appropriate, whether it is simply prescribing an antidepressant, referring the teen to therapy, or both.