Law Commons^™

The Dsm-5: Implications For Health Law, Stacey A. Tovino

Utah Law Review

In May 2013, the American Psychiatric Association released the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (“DSM-5”). Among other changes, the DSM-5 includes new entries for hoarding disorder and premenstrual dysphoric disorder as well as a reclassified entry for gambling disorder. Using these changes as examples, this Article examines the implications of the DSM-5 for key

issues in health law, including health insurance coverage, public and private disability benefit eligibility, and disability discrimination protection. As a descriptive matter, this Article illustrates how the addition of new disorders and the reclassification of existing disorders in the DSM-5 …

“I Expected It To Happen/I Knew He’D Lost Control”: The Impact Of Ptsd On Criminal Sentencing After The Promulgation Of Dsm-5, Michael L. Perlin

Utah Law Review

Given the limited definition of PTSD in earlier versions of DSM, the pernicious roles of sanism and OCS, and judges’ reluctance to embrace mental disability as a mitigator within the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, PTSD diagnoses have had little positive impact on the criminal sentencing process. The expanded definition of PTSD in DSM-5 may have profound effects on all criminal sentencing. By expanding the range of symptom clusters, DSM-5 makes more defendants “eligible” to seek sentence reductions based on the 2011 amendments to the Guidelines and the statutory criteria for such reduction.

The Missing Victims Of Health Care Fraud, Anthony Kyriakakis

Utah Law Review

Over the past few decades, combating criminal health care fraud has become one of the highest priorities of federal law enforcement, which views and treats it as a financial crime that causes vast economic losses to the government and private insurers. But the crime also causes, or threatens, physical harms to individual health care patients, a class of victims that the criminal justice system often fails to recognize. This Article is the first to explore how structures and hidden levers of power within the criminal justice bureaucracy lead agents and prosecutors to select—and ignore—particular harms and victims and, more importantly, …

The Dsm-5 And Criminal Defense: When Does A Diagnosis Make A Difference?, Nancy Haydt

Utah Law Review

In June 2013, the American Psychiatric Association published the Fifth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (“DSM-5”). The DSM-5 was intended to be an updated guidebook for the clinical diagnosis of mental disorders. It received mixed reviews from the mental health community. The reception from the forensic mental health community is likewise varied. The evolution of conceptualizing mental illness, its origins and treatment efficacy, may weaken the authority of the DSM and further confuse its application in forensic situations. This Article explores the possible effects of the DSM-5 in criminal cases.

Does The Dsm-5 Threaten Autism Service Access?, Rebecca Johnson

Utah Law Review

The present paper addressed the question: how will the DSM-5 revisions impact access to autism services? While media commentators posited a straightforward link between DSM-5 changes and service access, we should consider the different strength of couplings between a DSM diagnosis and entitlement access by investigating the factors that result in a diagnoses translation into service access. The Article began by outlining the pre DSM-5 policy background for autism entitlements. This background helps contextualize the policy environment into which the DSM-5 changes entered. Rather than examining autism medical and educational services in isolation, we should conceive of these services as …

Diagnosis Dangerous: Why State Licensing Boards Should Step In To Prevent Mental Health Practitioners From Speculating Beyond The Scope Of Professional Standards, Jennifer S. Bard

Utah Law Review

This Article reviews the use of mental health experts to provide testimony on the future dangerousness of individuals who have already been convicted of a crime that qualifies them for the death penalty. Although this practice is common in many states that still retain the death penalty, it most frequently occurs in Texas because of a statute that makes it mandatory for juries to determine the future dangerousness of the defendant they have just found guilty. Both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association have protested the use of mental health professionals in this setting because there are …