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Patients seen in public mental health settings have a much shorter lifespan (≤25 years shorter) than the general population, mostly because of medical illness, including the increased health consequences of comorbid substance use and adverse effects of pharmacotherapy. These researchers randomized 407 patients seen at a community mental health center to a medical management program or treatment as usual to see the effect on patients' access to care and general health status.
Nurses provided protocol-based medical case management, including motivational enhancement, education, advocacy with providers, enrolling uninsured patients in entitlement programs, and tackling care barriers (e.g., providing transportation tokens and attending to child …