Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Top Four Kick-the-Can Issues in Health Care

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Becker's is an incredible daily resource through various newsletters aimed at hospital management, CFO's, and policy makers. From th...
Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Out-of-Pocket Costs Are Top of the List of Voters' Concerns

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Money's tight. Inflation seems to be stuck at a level that bothers voters -- R, D, and Ind alike. Worries that the Fed may back off a no...
Sunday, February 18, 2024

Chicken Soup for COVID-19?

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Earlier this week, NBC reported that the CDC is considering a substantial change to its isolation guidelines for individuals who are COVID+...
Saturday, February 17, 2024

$2 Billion (with a "B") Healthcare Fraud Scheme Alleged by CMS & FBI

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From Becker's Hospital Review (Feb. 13, 2024): The FBI and CMS are investigating an alleged  fraud scheme. The scheme ran for two years...
Wednesday, February 14, 2024

False Claims Act: Causation Standard Up for Grabs

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On February 13 AHLA posted a nice, lengthy analysis of the circuit split over the appropriate standard for proving "causation" in ...
Saturday, February 03, 2024

"Violence Against Healthcare Workers is a Silent Epidemic"

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From Becker's Hospital Review  (Jan. 24):  In 2023, Cleveland Clinic saw a record 14 million patients — and took 30,000 weapons from tho...
Friday, February 02, 2024

One Guy, $234 Million Medicare Fraud Scheme

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  With a name that could be right out of Dickens novel, Imran Shams puts most other health care fraudster to shame. What he lacks in imagina...
Thursday, February 01, 2024

Healthiest & Unhealthiest Counties in the U.S.: Texas is Tops on One of These Lists

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Market Watch's latest report (January 5) ranks 576 counties based on "14 key metrics that capture the individual, environmental an...
Tuesday, January 23, 2024

JAMA On-line: Scorn for Approach of Texas Supreme Court and AG in Cases Involving Exceptions to Abortion Ban

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In an excellent on-line (and free) commentary in JAMA (Jan. 22, 2024), three Harvard authors ask the question: "Whose Responsibility I...

JAMA: Increased Depression & Anxiety in Trigger States After Dobbs Decision

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In a free article in the Journal of the American Medical Association ( JAMA. 2024;331(4):294-301. doi:10.1001/jama.2023.25599 ) (PDF), rese...
Friday, January 05, 2024

Donald Trump and the Perils of Practicing Medicine Without a License

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Hydrochloroquine for COVID? Remember when that was a thing? From The Messenger (Jan. 4): In a study published this week in the journal Biom...
Thursday, January 04, 2024

How Much Does the Fifth Circuit Care About Public Health?

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The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has handed down a couple of decisions this week that surprised me a lot (except that this 5th Circuit is th...
Wednesday, January 03, 2024

Four New Advisory Opinions from HHS-OIG

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On Jan. 3, HHS's Office of Inspector-General (OIG) released four new Advisory Opinions, all apparently finalized at the end of December:...

Physician Acquitted in $15M Healthcare Fraud Prosecution

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A federal jury in Maryland convicted the physician on five counts of healthcare fraud in connection with his billing practices for level 4 C...
Tuesday, January 02, 2024

UPDATED: Considerations on the Use of Neonatal and Pediatric Resuscitation Guidelines for Hospitalized Neonates and Infants

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It's always a big deal when the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Heart Association  publish an update on the use of resus...
Sunday, December 17, 2023

Medicare Cognitive Assessments: Yet Another Example of Mental Health's Second-Class Status

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A new GAO report -- "Medicare Cognitive Assessments: Utilization Tripled between 2018 and 2022, but Challenges Remain"  (Dec. 11) ...
Saturday, December 16, 2023

Ruth Marcus: Calling Out the Texas Supreme Court for its Opinion in the Kate Cox Case

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Ruth Marcus is one of the most acute observers of political cultural and political life in this country. Now add legal commentary to her too...
Friday, December 15, 2023

Kaiser: Who Decides When a Patient Qualifies for an Abortion Ban Exception? Doctors vs. the Courts

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 Here's a thoughtful brief from the Kaiser Family Foundation on abortion-ban exceptions around the country. It starts with a quick summ...
Tuesday, December 12, 2023

Texas Supreme Court Puts an Exclamation Point on Kate Cox's Doomed Quest for Reproductive Health Care in Texas

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Late yesterday (12/11) the Supreme Court of Texas issued a seven-page per curiam   opinion that reversed the trial court's order in the...
Monday, December 11, 2023

Kate Cox Leaves Texas to Obtain an Abortion

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I put up a series of posts last week to illustrate the tortuous path taken by Kate Cox in order to terminate a pregnancy that posed a threat...