Case Study in What’s Wrong With Our Health Care System
What’s wrong with the U.S. health care system, in a nutshell? Too much fancy technology for acute events, not enough upstream, preventive primary care.
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health care
Ancient DNA Reveals How Tuberculosis Shaped the Human Immune System
A new study employing ancient human DNA reveals how tuberculosis has affected European populations over the past 2,000 years.
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Ninth Circuit Urged to Toss Health Care Mandate for Seattle Hotel Workers
Seattle’s new law requiring hotel owners to pay workers health benefits should be tossed out for violating ERISA, an industry group told a Ninth Circuit panel Monday.
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Prisoners Face Severe Covid Risks Without Federal Vaccine Priority
Courthouse News reached out to experts about the dangers of being incarcerated and unvaccinated, and how policies can shift to ease health disparities compounded by the coronavirus.
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Medical Marijuana
An appeals court in New York upheld a Workers’ Compensation Board’s finding that an insurance carrier can be directed to pay for an injured police officer’s medical marijuana, which his pain management specialist prescribed to treat his chronic pain and reduce his reliance on prescription opiates.
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Arizona Fined $1.1 Million Over Failure of Prison Health Care
A federal judge Wednesday fined Arizona $1.1 million for contempt stemming from its failure to comply with a 2014 settlement over the health care of inmates in the state’s prisons, the second such fine for the state since 2018.
Read moreHealth Care Fraud
Arman Abovyan, a former medical director for substance abuse treatment centers in Florida, was properly convicted of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and conspiracy to possess with intent to dispense controlled substances, the 11th Circuit ruled. Abovyan ordered excessive drug testing and prescribed Suboxone to his patients even though he was not licensed to do so.
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Justices to Hear Challenge to Trump Abortion Gag Rule
The Supreme Court agreed Monday to resolve a circuit split over a Trump administration rule denying federal funding to clinics that refer women for abortions.
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Drug Discounts
A federal court in California dismissed a suit against the Department of Health and Human Services relating to its 340B Program, through which certain hospitals and other providers who serve low-income patients receive drug discounts. The plaintiff health care providers claimed the department should have blocked changes made by several drug companies, which notified program participants that certain drugs wouldn’t be provided under the program to entities without an in-house pharmacy.
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First Baby Born After Uterus Transplant in France
A baby has been born following a uterus transplant for the first time ever in France, the hospital treating mother and infant said Wednesday.
Read moreMental Health
Park Nicollet Health Services owed a duty to Brian Short, who died by suicide after killing his wife and three children in 2015, that “was not contingent on its custody or control of Short,” an appeals court in Minnesota ruled, reviving wrongful death claims against the health care provider.
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New Report Delivers Stunning Rebuke of Trump’s Health Policies
A new report commissioned by medical journal The Lancet revealed a host of widespread policy failures that resulted in thousands of preventable deaths, worsened racial disparities and further widened the inequalities between rich and poor.
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11th Circuit Tackles Pharmacist’s Conviction in $121 Million Skin-Cream Fraud
The Department of Justice fought in the 11th Circuit Thursday to preserve the conviction of a pharmacist who prosecutors say participated in a half-baked scheme to fraudulently bill millions of dollars for topical creams.
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1 Dead, 4 Injured in Shooting at Minnesota Health Clinic
A 67-year-old man unhappy with the health care he’d received opened fire at a clinic Tuesday, killing one person and wounding four others, and bomb technicians were investigating a suspicious device left there and others at a motel where he was staying, authorities said.
Read moreOvertime
In a Fair Labor Standards Act dispute, weekly per diem benefits were improperly excluded from the regular rate of pay for two classes of clinician who worked for health care staffing company AMN Services, the Ninth Circuit ruled. Those benefits should be considered part of the rate of pay for the purpose of calculating overtime.
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New Executive Orders Help Abortion Seekers, Medicare Enrollees
President Biden said the objective is to “undo the damage that Trump has done” to the Affordable Care Act and to women’s reproductive health.
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California Turns to Blue Shield to Oversee Covid-19 Vaccine Effort
California officials said Wednesday they will turn to a health care provider to fill the gaps in the state’s massive Covid-19 vaccination program after early efforts unevenly distributed the much-needed doses.
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Leahy, Set to Preside Over Trump Senate Trial, Taken to Hospital
Patrick Leahy, the Senate’s president pro tempore who is set to president over former President Trump’s second impeachment trial, was hospitalized Tuesday night after he began feeling ill in his office, according to a spokesperson.
Read moreSex Abuse
A federal court in New York ordered the Indian Health Service to release to the New York Times a report it commissioned of a private investigation into “numerous acts of rape and sexual abuse” committed against Native American children by former IHS pediatrician Stanley Patrick Weber. In 2018 and 2019, Weber was convicted of several charges in Montana and South Dakota.
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Ninth Circuit Finds Jail Nurses, San Diego Can’t Dodge Liability in Man’s Overdose Death
A trio of nurses and San Diego County can’t dodge liability for a man’s overdose death in jail, the Ninth Circuit found, in confirming a new standard of review for medical indifference to inmates.
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