Since 1984, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of health-care experts, has regularly issued recommendations for doctors and patients about the best strategies for preventive care, including screenings, counseling services, and medications that help ward off disease. These recommendations don’t take cost-effectiveness into account, instead focusing entirely on maximum benefit for the patient. And a few weeks ago, the USPSTF took a dramatic step in the realm of mental-health promotion: In the first update to its adult depression-screening guidelines since 2009, the group now recommends “screening for depression in the general adult population, including pregnant and postpartum women,” without any other caveats.
The USPSTF assigns all its guidelines a letter grade based on how much they stand to help patients; this one earned a B, which indicates “high certainty that the net benefit is moderate” or “moderate certainty that the net benefit is moderate to substantial.” The grade puts depression screening in the same category as yearly mammograms, diabetes screening in overweight and obese patients, and lung-cancer screening for at risk patients, among other things. In doing so, it also elevates mental health to a higher priority in primary care.
[For more of this story, written by Farah Khan, go to http://www.theatlantic.com/hea...primary-care/462933/]
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