Miami health-care executive Larry Duran orchestrated one of the largest Medicare frauds in U.S. history, submitting more than $205 million in phony claims and landing a record-breaking 50-year prison sentence for his crimes. But another piece of Duran’s scheme also caught the eye of prosecutors. They say he extended his fraud by his lobbying efforts, all aimed at getting official Washington to make it easier for mental health centers like his to make money. Read full article > >

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Health executive lobbied in Washington to advance Medicare fraud scheme

Many of the people who bicycle from place to place around Washington say they find it therapeutic. Now a new program will consider whether bicycling is effective therapy for people who may need it the most. On the anniversary of its creation, the Capital Bikeshare program has embraced a study that will provide 20 mentally ill people with memberships, in part to help them get around town but also to see whether cycling improves their physical and mental health. Read full article > >

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Mental health study tries Capital Bikeshare as therapy

Many of the people who bicycle from place to place around Washington say they find it therapeutic. Now a new program will consider whether bicycling is effective therapy for people who may need it the most. On the anniversary of its creation, the Capital Bikeshare program has embraced a study that will provide 20 mentally ill people with memberships, in part to help them get around town but also to see whether cycling improves their physical and mental health. Read full article > >

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Mental health study tries Capital Bikeshare as therapy

The Obama administration is ramping up civil rights enforcement against local police nationwide, opening a number of investigations to determine whether officers are guilty of brutality or discrimination against Hispanics and other minorities. In recent months, the Justice Department has begun inquiries into major city police departments such as Portland, Ore ., where officers shot several people who had mental health issues, and Seattle, where police were accused of gunning down a homeless Native American woodcarver. The department issued a scathing report earlier this month accusing Puerto Rico police of a “staggering level of crime and corruption.’’ Read full article > >

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Justice Department boosts activity to police the police

The death of a man decapitated by a mental health patient could have been prevented if there had not been a catalogue of lost opportunities, an inquiry finds.

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Beheading death was ‘preventable’

More needs to be done to address the mental health and wellbeing problems faced by children in the youth justice system, experts say.

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Youth offenders’ care ‘lacking’

Cash-strapped states are scaling back efforts to provide life-saving medicines to HIV patients. The result: more than 8,300 people – a record number — are on waiting lists in 13 states to get antiretrovirals and other drugs used to treat HIV and AIDS or the side effects, mental health conditions or opportunistic infections. And that number probably understates the need, say advocates , who note that many states have simply eliminated waiting lists or reduced eligibility. “States that have changed their eligibility programs or don’t have a waiting list, or some states have disenrolled their patients, that’s a kind of silent crisis, I think,” said Jeff Graham, executive director of Georgia Equality , an advocacy group on gay issues. His state holds the second-highest number of patients on a waiting list: 1,520. Read full article > >

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States cut back efforts to provide drugs for HIV, AIDS

Almost 4,000 servicemen and women – or 2% of the armed forces – were diagnosed with mental health disorders last year, a Ministry of Defence report says.

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Rise in mental problems in forces

Mental health care is a profession increasingly dominated by women, giving rise to concern that some men in need of help may go without.

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Need Therapy? A Good Man Is Hard to Find

Mental health problems have overtaken conditions such as back pain as the main reason for claiming incapacity benefit, say researchers.

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Mental health ‘top welfare claim’

Patients sectioned under the Mental Health Act win permission to bring a legal challenge over a smoking ban.

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Patients win smoke ban challenge

Patients sectioned under the Mental Health Act win permission to bring a legal challenge over a smoking ban.

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Patients win smoke ban challenge

A mental health charity calls a recent rise in hospital admissions for young people in Wales who self-harm “alarming”.

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Self-harm rise among young people

A mental health charity calls a recent rise in hospital admissions for young people in Wales who self-harm “alarming”.

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Self-harm rise among young people

Archaeologists surveying the ground at Liverpool Street station in preparation for Crossrail tunnelling have unearthed hundreds of skeletons on the site of a historic mental health hospital.

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VIDEO: Workmen unearth Bedlam mass grave