Institute of Medicine: Provision Of Mental Health Counseling Services Under TRICARE - This book was authored by The Committee on the Qualifications of Professionals Providing Mental Health Counseling Services under TRICARE, Board on the Health of Select Populations. The report brief concludes: "Our nation's service members and their families have significant mental health services needs. In order to ensure that they receive the appropriate diagnosis and treatment, TRICARE should assure that all mental health providers, including counselors, are provided with a practice environment that facilitates high quality care through appropriate scopes of practice, education on the particular problems and needs of the patient population, promotion of evidence-based practices, monitoring of outcomes, and application of quality improvement strategies. As part of that quality management system, counselors should be allowed to practice independently when their education, training, and clinical experience have prepared them to meet the needs of the TRICARE beneficiary population" (2/12).

PLoS Medicine: Can Broader Diffusion of Value-Based Insurance Design Increase Benefits From US Health Care Without Increasing Costs? Evidence From A Computer Simulation Model - This study examines the impact of value-based insurance design (VBID), "an approach in which the amount of cost sharing is set according to the 'value' of an intervention rather than its cost," on U.S. health care benefits and cost. Researchers used a computer simulation "to estimate the impact of applying VBID to cost sharing for drugs alone and to cost sharing for drugs, procedures, and other health care services for one million hypothetical US patients. ... Broader diffusion of VBID to pharmaceuticals increased the benefit conferred by health care by 0.03 to 0.05 additional life-years, without increasing costs and without increasing out-of-pocket payments. Broader diffusion of VBID to other health care services could increase the benefit conferred by health care by 0.24 to 0.44 additional life-years, also without increasing costs and without increasing overall out-of-pocket payments" (Braithwaite et al., 2/16).

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