Medicaid Policies for Alcohol SBI Reimbursement

The purpose of this report was to review existing reimbursement policies by state Medicaid agency, including the District of Columbia (D.C.), in order to understand similarities and differences associated with financial compensation for alcohol screening and brief intervention (SBI) services. Alcohol SBI is an evidence-based practice known to help reduce atrisk alcohol consumption among patients who drink too much. 1 Although alcohol SBI was designed to be a population-based approach to address unhealthy alcohol consumption, its current utilization is limited. 2 Implementation of the practice into routine clinical care remains a challenge at the health system level even with support from federal resources (e.g., SBIRT: Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment). One way to encourage the uptake of alcohol SBI/SBIRT among providers is to ensure that the service is reimbursable by third-party payers. However, reimbursement opportunities vary by state and payer, and in some locations are non-existent. Information about the current status of policies will assist in the development of policies and incentives to encourage healthcare providers and systems to submit claims for alcohol SBI/SBIRT and potentially increase the routine uptake of the service in clinical careCenters for Disease Control and Prevention Cooperative Agreement Number DD00114

Recasting Economics as if the Climate and Global Ecology Really Mattered

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

VELO Module Production - Cable Testing

This note describes in detail the procedures used in the reception, handling, testing and storage of HT and LT cables for the LHCb VELO detector modules

Sleep, Sirtuin 1 and Alzheimer’s disease: A review

Sleep plays a major role in brain health, and cognition. Disrupted sleep is a well-described symptom of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, accumulating evidence suggests suboptimal sleep also increases AD risk. The deacetylase Sirtuin 1 (Sirt 1), encoded by the SIRT1 gene, impacts sleep via its relationship to wake-sleep neurotransmitters and somnogens. Evidence from animal and human studies supports a significant and complex relationship between sleep, Sirt 1/ SIRT1 and AD. Numerous hypotheses attempt to explain the critical impact of Sirt 1/ SIRT1 on wake- and sleep- promoting neurons, their related mechanisms and neurotransmitters. However, there is a paucity of studies assessing the interaction between sleep and Sirt 1/ SIRT1, as a principal component of sleep regulation, on AD pathology. In this review, we explore the potential association between Sirt 1/ SIRT1, sleep, and AD aetiology. Given sleep is a likely modifiable risk factor for AD, and recent studies suggest Sirt 1/ SIRT1 activation can be modulated by lifestyle or dietary approaches, further research in this area is required to explore its potential as a target for AD prevention and treatment

Where Are Be/black-hole Binaries?

We apply the tidal truncation model proposed by Negueruela & Okazaki(2001) to arbitrary Be/compact star binaries to study the truncation efficiency dependance on the binary parameters. We find that the viscous decretion disks around the Be stars could be truncated very effectively in narrow systems. Combining this with the population synthesis results of Podsiadlowski, Rappaport and Han (2003) that binary black holes are most likely to be born in systems with orbital periods less than about 30 days, we suggest that most of the Be/black-hole binaries may be transient systems with very long quiescent states. This could explain the lack of observed Be/black-hole X-ray binaries. We also discuss the evolution of the Be/black-hole binaries and their possible observational features.Comment: 14 pages,3 figures, ApJ accepte