Coronavirus

Clinical Update

Helping Families Through the COVID-19 Pandemic

Topics: Coronavirus | COVID19 | online therapy | pandemic | Telehealth | Telemedicine | Telepsychiatry

The coronavirus has called on skills that few of us learned in our training. But you don’t need to be an epidemiologist or mental health expert to take some basic steps that will make this pandemic easier for your patients and families. Telepsychiatry Telehealth is becoming the norm, not the exception, and many private practices have shifted to ph

Read More

Psychiatry on the Front Lines of a Pandemic

Topics: Chokroverty | Coronavirus | COVID19 | New York | Podcast

Linda Chokroverty, MD, is the attending physician at the Montefiore Health Systems in Bronx, NY; Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine; and Co-Chair of the Disaster and Trauma Issues Committee with the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. In this epi

Read More
Clinical Update

SAMHSA Relaxes Regulations on Methadone and Buprenorphine During COVID-19 Emergency

Topics: Buprenorphine | Coronavirus | COVID-19 | Methadone | Opioid epidemic | Opioid Use Disorder | Opioids | Outpatient | pandemic | Patient relationship

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has changed some prescribing rules to help minimize in-person contact while maintaining access to medications for opioid use disorder (OUD). Methadone Patients starting methadone continue to require an in-person medical evaluation at an opioid treatment program (OTP) prior to sta

Read More
Expert Q&A

Telepsychiatry: From Crisis to Opportunity

Topics: Billing | Computers in Psychiatric Practice | Coronavirus | COVID19 | HIPAA | Practice Tools and Tips | Psychiatric interviewing | Skype | Telemed

TCPR: Do patients like telepsych?Dr. Yellowlees: Yes. The studies show very high levels of patient satisfaction, higher even than what we see with in-person care. Most of those studies were done before 2010, when the technology was not as good and patients often traveled to their primary care doctor’s office to connect by telemed. I suspect the satisf

Read More
Clinical Update

How COVID-19 Affects the Brain

Topics: C-Reactive Protein | Coronavirus | COVID19 | CRP | Lamictal | Lamotrigine | Medical Comorbidities | Neurology | Neuroscience in Psychiatry | Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

The COVID-19 pandemic is a source of many stress-related conditions, from grief to depression to PTSD. But there’s another problem we need to look out for in those who’ve been infected with the virus: neuropsychiatric effects. The novel coronavirus can potentially invade neurons, and the immune response to this virus can affect the brain as well. Si

Read More
Expert Q&A

Who Should Get Lithium?

Topics: Bipolar Disorder | Bipolar II | Coronavirus | COVID19 | Lithium | Mania | Mood Stabilizers | Pharmacology | Pharmacology Tips | Psychopharmacology | Psychopharmacology Tips

TCPR: Lithium has been called the gold-standard treatment in bipolar disorder. Why is it not used more often? Dr. Rybakowski: That is a paradox. On the one hand, lithium is accepted as a first-line treatment for bipolar disorder, but it is also greatly underutilized. And I think there are two main reasons. One is aggressive promotion of branded mood st

Read More