Tuesday, February 22, 2022 | Kaiser Health News

WUSF Community Media:
Healthcare facility Leaders Are Criticizing State Proposals To Cut Medicaid Resources

Clinic leaders are voicing worries about budget proposals in the state House and Senate that would cut funding for hospitals that deal with the most vulnerable people. The two chambers’ budgets would get rid of about $300 million for what is recognized as the “critical care fund.” This income is employed to give automated charge enhancements to a team of security net hospitals in the point out that deal with huge quantities of Medicaid sufferers, who consist of Florida’s aged, children, low-revenue family members and persons with disabilities. The Property also recommended reducing $100 million in condition Medicaid reimbursement cash to all hospitals, which is matched by federal cash, and would divert that income as an alternative to greater education to train foreseeable future nurses. (Colombini, 2/18)

Axios:
Ambulance Rides Are Obtaining A Large amount Much more Costly

The value of an ambulance journey has soared more than the past five yrs, in accordance to a report from Honest Health and fitness, shared 1st with Axios. Sufferers ordinarily have minor skill to choose their ambulance provider, and frequently discover by themselves on the hook for hundreds, if not thousands of pounds. Most ambulance trips billed insurers for “superior existence assistance,” in accordance to Truthful Health’s analysis. Non-public insurers’ ordinary payment for those rides jumped by 56{93df639ba5729b348ae8590b358f91b5aa58d691ea2628f7cc4175889aae1ffa} between 2017 and 2020 — from $486 to $758. (Reed, 2/22)

Billings Gazette:
Jury Awards $36.5 Million Verdict Against Insurance policy Firm In Bellwether Libby Asbestos Circumstance

For a lot more than two decades, the asbestos victims of Libby have waited. Throughout that time, they viewed The W.R. Grace Co., longtime homeowners of the mine that poisoned several employees and their people and spewed so much poisonous dust into the air that the entire city of Libby was endangered, declare personal bankruptcy. (Cumber, 2/21)

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WFSU:
A Federal Courtroom Claims Requiring A License To Give Dietary Tips Doesn’t Violate Free Speech Rights 

A federal appeals court has upheld the constitutionality of a Florida regulation that restricts unlicensed men and women from giving dietary guidance, rejecting arguments that it violates Initial Modification legal rights. A 3-decide panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals turned down the obstacle filed by Heather Kokesch Del Castillo, who was cited by the Florida Department of Health in 2017 for obtaining compensated to give nutritional assistance with out staying a condition-accredited dietitian or nutritionist. Del Castillo ran what the ruling described as a “health-coaching business,” which provided presenting nutritional guidance to customers. Following getting a complaint from a certified dietitian and investigating, the Department of Health alleged Del Castillo violated a legislation recognised as the Dietetics and Diet Apply Act. (2/21)

Bloomberg:
Karex Sees Growing Need For Condoms As Covid Constraints Ease

The world’s largest producer of condoms stated it expects the demand from customers for its products to raise as the widening vaccine protection prompt governments to simplicity social-distancing regulations. “As vaccination fees ramp up all-around the entire world, additional economies proceed to loosen up limits and societies begin to adapt to put up-pandemic daily life,” Malaysia’s Karex Bhd. mentioned in a observe accompanying its earnings on Monday. (Ngui, 2/21)

In wellbeing treatment staffing information —

11alive.com:
Vacation Nurses Becoming Far more High priced For Hospitals Through Pandemic 

Vacation nurses were a lifeline for hospitals for the duration of the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic for overcome hospitals about the region, but two many years into it, the increasing cost is getting a ripple influence. “I usually question where have all the nurses gone?” Jody Leonard, a nurse with approximately 25 a long time of working experience, reported. “Most hospitals are carrying out what they have to do to get team in spot. Because without nurses, the clinic can’t functionality.” (Lucas, 2/21)

AP:
UNMC Receives $2.2M Grant To Address Nursing Burnout

The College of Nebraska Healthcare Center University of Nursing has obtained a $2.2 million federal grant to deal with burnout amongst the state’s nurses as the coronavirus pandemic stretches into a third yr. The 3-12 months grant is funded by the U.S. Office of Wellness and Human Services’ Well being Assets and Expert services, the Omaha World-Herald reported. It is element of an estimated $103 million in coronavirus aid funding to decrease burnout and encourage psychological wellbeing among the the nation’s well being care workforce. (2/21)

Anchorage Daily News:
Program To Incorporate Alaska Places To WWAMI Health care College Wins Guidance, But Administrators Say There’s No Rapidly Way To Get There

As element of the state spending plan, Gov. Mike Dunleavy has proposed opening up the regional healthcare university program that serves Alaskans to 10 added Alaska learners every year — from 20 pupils to 30 rather — beginning with this year’s incoming class. University companions say they’re glad to see funding earmarked for the state’s WWAMI plan and that expanding the course dimension could be a fantastic thing: The pandemic has highlighted Alaska’s need for much more doctors, and the program has a observe document of education and retaining a substantial proportion of the state’s medical professionals. (Berman, 02/21)

Albuquerque Journal:
Nursing 911: Shortage Of Staff Requires Expanded Education Capacity

Intense treatment models through New Mexico are working beyond potential. Hundred-day clinic stays are nearly commonplace now but were unheard of ahead of 2020. Nurses, growing old alongside with our U.S. populace, are retiring. As desire for overall health treatment solutions mounts, the scarcity of registered nurses worsens. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the nursing shortage by raising the number of people getting into the overall health care procedure and skewing the affected person-to-nurse ratio toward dicey territory. (Lee, 2/21)

Politico:
Rural Hospitals Stave Off Mass Exodus Of Personnel To Vaccine Mandate

Rural medical center officials who envisioned Covid vaccine mandates to trigger a staffing crisis are going through a nice shock: Spiritual exemptions and education initiatives for the hesitant are retaining almost all health care employees on the occupation. Virtually two dozen rural medical center officials and state hospital association leaders instructed POLITICO they have lost just a fraction of their staff to the federal immunization necessity, which mandated that health and fitness treatment employees in just about every state other than Texas acquired at the very least one shot of the vaccine by past 7 days. (Messerly, 2/22)

C-Strike.ORG:
Surging Behavioral Overall health Treatment Demands For Little ones Place Pressure On School Social Staff

On paper, the social worker’s position at public K-12 educational facilities is simple: to guidance a caseload of students with exclusive requires to thrive in usually-difficult academic placing. But request a social employee employed in a public school these days, and they’re possible to notify a considerably distinctive story. For social employee Jara Rijs, who is effective at Windham Centre School, in which extra than 50 percent of its pre-K as a result of fifth-quality students qualify for backed lunch, the task responsibilities bleed well over and above the task description, particularly considering that the pandemic hit. (Heubeck, 2/19)

San Diego Union-Tribune:
Will COVID-19 Very long-Haulers Thrust Outpatient Healthcare Procedure To Breaking Point?

Carolina Nieto of Escondido and Julio Lara of Valley Middle became the most recent patients at the Sharp Healthcare COVID-19 Recovery Method Friday, conference with rehabilitation experts about lingering indications that they have suffered given that 2021. Nieto, 63, arrived nonetheless pulling an oxygen tank much more than one calendar year just after the virus put her in the hospital for 15 days. She carries on to battle with multiple COVID-19 indicators, which include small-expression memory and exhaustion when she attempts to stroll far more than a number of actions at a time. (Sisson, 2/21)

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KHN:
‘Injections, Injections, Injections’: Troubling Inquiries Follow Closure Of Sprawling Soreness Clinic Chain

On Might 13 of previous calendar year, the cellphones of countless numbers of California people undergoing therapy for continual ache lit up with a terse textual content information: “Due to unexpected instances, Lags Clinical Facilities will be closing helpful May 19, 2021.” In a make a difference of days, Lags Healthcare, a sprawling community of privately owned ache clinics serving more than 20,000 sufferers all over the state’s Central Valley and Central Coastline, would shut its doors. Its sufferers, most of them functioning-class individuals reliant on government-funded insurance plan, were still left with no ready access to their healthcare documents or handoffs to other physicians. Quite a few patients had been dependent on opioids to manage the soreness brought on by a debilitating disorder or harm, in accordance to alerts about the closures that condition health and fitness officials emailed to spot medical professionals. They ended up sent off with just one remaining 30-day prescription, and no crystal clear route for how to cope with the agony — whether from their underlying ailments or the bodily dependency that accompanies extended-time period use of painkillers — after that prescription ran out. (Maria Barry-Jester and Gold, 2/22)

KHN:
Journalists Critique Healthcare facility Penalties And Complications Riddling Medicaid Rx System

Samantha Youthful, a political correspondent for California Healthline, on Feb. 15 talked over how Medi-Cal patients wrestle to get their prescription medicine on KCRW’s “Press Participate in.” Interim Southern bureau editor Andy Miller reviewed Medicare penalties for hospitals in Ga on Ga General public Broadcasting’s “Lawmakers” on Feb. 10. (2/19)