The time is now.

Kudos to the New England Journal for its coverage of America's behavioral health crisis. Last week's issue featured two intense pieces, the first addressing the significant interactions between healthcare and criminal justice around patients with behavioral health diagnoses (https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1606083) and the second grappling with how and where to best provide treatment (https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMms1610124).

For me, the key passage is from the second piece:

"Approximately one quarter of homeless people in the United States have serious mental illness — a category comprising diseases such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression that cause substantial impairment. Most are not receiving regular psychiatric treatment, but undertreatment isn’t limited to the homeless. Of 9.8 million U.S. adults with serious mental illness, an estimated 40% receive no treatment in any given year. Those who get care often face protracted delays: the average lag between onset and treatment of major depressive disorder, for instance, is 8 years."

The question isn't whether we need a major overhaul of America's strategy to support patients with behavioral health diagnoses but when, and the time is NOW. See below for a recent ModernHealthcare piece about legislation that is awaiting Senate action in the lame duck session - maybe *ONE GOOD THING* can come out of Washington this year... it's certainly not a panacea, but at least its a start.

https://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20161008/MAGAZINE/310089985