Project Angel Food in California provides over 2,000 meals a week during the pandemic to the frail elderly and people with serious illnesses, such as heart disease, or those coming out of surgery like a bypass, up from 1,600 meals a week in 2019. God’s Love We Deliver, a New York non-profit, also reports a record number of home deliveries since March.

Centers dedicated to being efficient in a potential suicide and handling high-risk mental health situations are popping up in a number of US cities. They are funded typically from a combination of corporate, hospital, university and sometimes government funds, and they are designed to give police a better place to bring people who are in a crisis and free up crowded hospital ERs.

There continue to be a host of ways to head off suicide or talk to a mental health counselor. 988 is now the new number to call to head off a suicide and thank goodness - it's a heck of a lot easier to remember than the previous 800 number that few used! Hotlines continue to try to hire staff.

Financial stress has a way of forcing us to change behavior and, well, this is a doozy: 61% of college students will forgo school this year according to our random poll of 417 incoming freshman and sophomores and more than a third of those “taking a break” report plans to try and ‘start up digital businesses’, namely apps, many partnering with fellow classmates and old friends.

Wigs for people undergoing cancer treatment are big business, costing upwards of $5,000-a-piece and supported by a national network of non-profits, retail salons and annual fundraisers, but the coronavirus has halted the industry, leaving some small start-ups and non-profits to close and patients, in some cases, left without a custom wig.

Parents with children on the spectrum are finding themselves thrust into at-home applied behavioral analysis and learning “to be a therapist” on the fly, like Sam Francis, one dad we talked to last week who says he was “up all night” taking a training course to help his 9-year-old son who “used to go to the center 25 hours a week.”

Parents with children on the spectrum are finding themselves thrust into at-home applied behavioral analysis and learning “to be a therapist” on the fly, like Sam Francis, one dad we talked to last week who says he was “up all night” taking a training course to help his 9-year-old son who “used to go to the center 25 hours a week.”

A half dozen physicians give us a feel for how they are adjusting, responding and planning during the coronavirus pandemic - how much visits are down, are virtual visits working, what are they doing to keep staff safe and respond to patient inquires.

Like the Big 10 basketball conference sending a gaggle of teams to the NCAA march madness tournament, behavioral health services including Cinderella 'telepsych' and nationally known 'addiction treatment' represent two of 5 services in the category to make this year's Top 20 health plan priorities

In an effort to change behavior, the United Health Group's company Optum will begin offering pre-paid debit cards starting in January 2021 so its members buy fresh, healthier foods from specific retailers.

517 parents who have children on the spectrum are not shy – about 75% in our poll say the best place to get their kids services quickly and cost effectively has no doubt been the northeast and mid Atlantic, including Pennsylvania, but by the time their kids roll through their teens and hit adulthood, the geography changes.

It was classic Bunker, worried, agitated and usually offensive. I wonder what he’d make of all the changes in healthcare – urgent care clinics, for one, are more often than not staffed by allied health providers.

Former American Idol contestant Antonella Barba has been sentenced to 45 months in federal prison for possessing and planning to distribute fentanyl, according to a court report.

Even as Mental Health First Aide training sweeps the nation to help moms, dads, teachers and youngsters spot the signs of depression, there remains a shortage of treatment options. Telepsych has helped, but has mostly gained a footprint in the commercial population. So insurers responsible for Medicaid patients are trying to respond with other ideas.

26-year-olds coming out of residency are getting less predictable. Interest in traveling positions that plug in the doctor for 1-3 month stints in interesting and oft times ‘vacation-like’ destinations are increasingly popular, despite prior year demand for security and limited hours in a hospital or academic environment.

So I put my Hoosier roots aside for a half hour and sat down in September with Purdue Boilermaker Sean Duddy for a conversation about managed care, behavioral health, contracting, refugees, and autism. Basically the full spectrum!