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Health insurance companies and employers will soon be directing more time, money and resources to comply with mental health parity mandates. But questions remain about what regulators expect of health plans and whether new federal rules effectively tackle the issue. About one in five U.S. adults has at least one behavioral health condition and many struggle to find and afford treatment, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (Berryman, 9/18)

St. Paul is dropping a program that's helped thousands of people in need. Mental health providers will no longer work with police to follow up on 911 calls to connect people in need to resources. The Community Outreach and Stabilization Unit, or COAST, handles about 1,700 cases a year. ... The city's scrapping COAST in hopes of providing those same services more efficiently, without overlapping agencies. (Schuman, 9/18)

Daisy started working as a crisis counselor for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline because she was personally affected by the loss of loved ones who’d taken their own lives, and wanted to help people avoid that outcome. She and other crisis counselors talk to people facing a mental health emergency, and in some cases, in the process of dying by suicide. It is a difficult role, but Daisy said she felt the training at PATH Crisis Center in Bloomington, Ill. prepared her for it. Then, she started getting what she described as “bogus sex calls.” (Ellin, 9/18)

As Texas embarks on a $2.5 billion expansion of its 163-year-old state psychiatric hospital system, the private psychiatric hospital industry, which offers a more accessible entry point for those who are seriously mentally ill, would like a word. How about a raise to the Medicaid rate for inpatient psychiatric care? (Langford, 9/19)

Bruce Brown thought it was an athletic supplement when he first saw it. Delivered in a standard UPS package to his home in late 2022, the yellowish-white powder didn't spark major concern for the Colorado lawyer, whose 17-year-old son Bennett played competitive soccer. Bennett wasn't staying at home that night, so Brown sent his son a text asking him what the substance was. He never got a response. Later, Brown learned the horrifying truth: It wasn't a supplement. It was sodium nitrite − a hazardous chemical compound Bennett ordered to use for ending his own life. Shortly after using the compound the next day, Bennett sought medical attention, but it was too late. He died on the way to the hospital. "They shipped it in two days to him, and it sold for the price of about $13," Brown says. "That was the price of my son's life." (Trepany, 9/18)

Increasingly researchers are raising concerns about what that bad air does to your health. A new CU Boulder study adds to the list of likely problems. It found exposure to air pollution including wildfire smoke increases symptoms of mental illness, things like depression and anxiety, in young people. “It wasn't that annual average exposure that seemed to be driving these effects with mental health symptoms. It was these really extreme, the number of extreme days that seemed to be most important,” said first author Harry Smolker, a research scientist with CU’s Institute of Cognitive Science. (Daley, 9/18)