Tuesday, February 22, 2022 | Kaiser Health News

WUSF Public Media:
Healthcare facility Leaders Are Criticizing Point out Proposals To Slash Medicaid Resources

Medical center leaders are voicing fears about spending plan proposals in the condition House and Senate that would lower funding for hospitals that take care of the most susceptible patients. Equally chambers’ budgets would get rid of about $300 million for what is known as the “critical care fund.” This income is used to give automated fee enhancements to a group of protection web hospitals in the condition that take care of large quantities of Medicaid sufferers, who include things like Florida’s aged, little ones, reduced-revenue families and individuals with disabilities. The Home also advisable slicing $100 million in state Medicaid reimbursement funds to all hospitals, which is matched by federal cash, and would divert that revenue rather to better education to coach potential nurses. (Colombini, 2/18)

Axios:
Ambulance Rides Are Finding A Great deal Additional High-priced

The price of an ambulance trip has soared around the previous five many years, in accordance to a report from Fair Well being, shared 1st with Axios. Sufferers usually have small skill to pick out their ambulance provider, and frequently locate on their own on the hook for hundreds, if not hundreds of dollars. Most ambulance journeys billed insurers for “sophisticated lifetime aid,” in accordance to Reasonable Health’s investigation. Personal insurers’ average payment for those rides jumped by 56{f8f9f7e6fa72495c30ab254213729fbbad6cff923a9c63d260c5c902274d4d9d} between 2017 and 2020 — from $486 to $758. (Reed, 2/22)

Billings Gazette:
Jury Awards $36.5 Million Verdict Versus Insurance policy Corporation In Bellwether Libby Asbestos Scenario

For additional than two decades, the asbestos victims of Libby have waited. Through that time, they watched The W.R. Grace Co., longtime homeowners of the mine that poisoned many staff and their people and spewed so much harmful dust into the air that the full town of Libby was endangered, declare individual bankruptcy. (Cumber, 2/21)

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WFSU:
A Federal Court Claims Demanding A License To Give Nutritional Tips Isn’t going to Violate No cost Speech Rights 

A federal appeals court has upheld the constitutionality of a Florida regulation that restricts unlicensed men and women from providing dietary suggestions, rejecting arguments that it violates 1st Modification rights. A three-choose panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court docket of Appeals turned down the obstacle submitted by Heather Kokesch Del Castillo, who was cited by the Florida Office of Health and fitness in 2017 for getting paid out to present nutritional advice with no becoming a state-accredited dietitian or nutritionist. Del Castillo ran what the ruling explained as a “health-coaching business enterprise,” which provided giving dietary guidance to clients. Right after obtaining a grievance from a certified dietitian and investigating, the Department of Well being alleged Del Castillo violated a legislation recognised as the Dietetics and Nutrition Exercise Act. (2/21)

Bloomberg:
Karex Sees Soaring Desire For Condoms As Covid Restrictions Simplicity

The world’s most significant producer of condoms explained it expects the demand for its products to enhance as the widening vaccine coverage prompt governments to relieve social-distancing regulations. “As vaccination premiums ramp up all over the world, much more economies go on to loosen up restrictions and societies start out to adapt to post-pandemic lifestyle,” Malaysia’s Karex Bhd. mentioned in a note accompanying its earnings on Monday. (Ngui, 2/21)

In wellbeing care staffing news —

11alive.com:
Journey Nurses Getting to be Much more High priced For Hospitals Throughout Pandemic 

Travel nurses have been a lifeline for hospitals during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic for overwhelmed hospitals about the place, but two many years into it, the increasing price tag is obtaining a ripple impact. “I often surprise where by have all the nurses absent?” Jody Leonard, a nurse with virtually 25 yrs of experience, claimed. “Most hospitals are executing what they have to do to get personnel in position. For the reason that without nurses, the healthcare facility can not functionality.” (Lucas, 2/21)

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

The College of Nebraska Health care Centre University of Nursing has received a $2.2 million federal grant to tackle burnout amid the state’s nurses as the coronavirus pandemic stretches into a 3rd year. The a few-year grant is funded as a result of the U.S. Office of Well being and Human Services’ Health Resources and Expert services, the Omaha Globe-Herald reported. It is element of an estimated $103 million in coronavirus reduction funding to decrease burnout and boost mental wellness amongst the nation’s overall health care workforce. (2/21)

Anchorage Daily Information:
Prepare To Incorporate Alaska Places To WWAMI Clinical University Wins Assist, But Administrators Say There’s No Quick Way To Get There

As portion of the condition budget, Gov. Mike Dunleavy has proposed opening up the regional health-related university application that serves Alaskans to 10 extra Alaska pupils just about every yr — from 20 pupils to 30 as an alternative — commencing with this year’s incoming class. College partners say they are happy to see funding earmarked for the state’s WWAMI program and that expanding the course dimension could be a excellent detail: The pandemic has highlighted Alaska’s need for extra physicians, and the method has a keep track of file of instruction and retaining a significant proportion of the state’s medical professionals. (Berman, 02/21)

Albuquerque Journal:
Nursing 911: Scarcity Of Personnel Involves Expanded Coaching Capacity

Intensive treatment models all through New Mexico are functioning past capability. Hundred-working day healthcare facility stays are nearly commonplace now but were being unheard of in advance of 2020. Nurses, getting old along with our U.S. population, are retiring. As demand from customers for health treatment services mounts, the shortage of registered nurses worsens. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the nursing lack by escalating the range of clients entering the health care method and skewing the individual-to-nurse ratio toward dicey territory. (Lee, 2/21)

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

Rural healthcare facility officers who anticipated Covid vaccine mandates to cause a staffing disaster are experiencing a pleasant surprise: Spiritual exemptions and instruction endeavours for the hesitant are keeping just about all overall health care employees on the career. Almost two dozen rural clinic officers and point out medical center affiliation leaders told POLITICO they have lost just a fraction of their team to the federal immunization requirement, which mandated that health treatment personnel in each condition apart from Texas received at least one particular shot of the vaccine by last week. (Messerly, 2/22)

C-Strike.ORG:
Surging Behavioral Health and fitness Treatment Desires For Kids Set Strain On University Social Workers

On paper, the social worker’s part at general public K-12 universities is simple: to support a caseload of students with distinctive requires to prosper in often-demanding tutorial placing. But ask a social worker used in a public faculty these days, and they’re possible to tell a substantially distinct story. For social worker Jara Rijs, who works at Windham Middle Faculty, in which additional than 50 {f8f9f7e6fa72495c30ab254213729fbbad6cff923a9c63d260c5c902274d4d9d} of its pre-K by way of fifth-grade students qualify for subsidized lunch, the work duties bleed properly further than the work description, especially due to the fact the pandemic hit. (Heubeck, 2/19)

San Diego Union-Tribune:
Will COVID-19 Lengthy-Haulers Drive Outpatient Professional medical Process To Breaking Position?

Carolina Nieto of Escondido and Julio Lara of Valley Center turned the newest individuals at the Sharp Healthcare COVID-19 Restoration Program Friday, meeting with rehabilitation experts about lingering indications that they have experienced because 2021. Nieto, 63, arrived continue to pulling an oxygen tank extra than a person yr after the virus place her in the medical center for 15 days. She proceeds to battle with several COVID-19 indications, which includes quick-expression memory and exhaustion when she tries to wander a lot more than a couple of measures at a time. (Sisson, 2/21)

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KHN:
‘Injections, Injections, Injections’: Troubling Thoughts Observe Closure Of Sprawling Suffering Clinic Chain

On May perhaps 13 of previous calendar year, the cellphones of hundreds of California inhabitants undergoing therapy for persistent agony lit up with a terse text message: “Due to unexpected circumstances, Lags Health care Facilities will be closing successful May perhaps 19, 2021.” In a make a difference of days, Lags Health-related, a sprawling network of privately owned discomfort clinics serving much more than 20,000 patients during the state’s Central Valley and Central Coast, would shut its doorways. Its people, most of them doing the job-course persons reliant on authorities-funded insurance policy, were still left without having completely ready obtain to their clinical data or handoffs to other doctors. Lots of individuals were dependent on opioids to deal with the soreness caused by a debilitating disease or injuries, according to alerts about the closures that condition overall health officers emailed to spot doctors. They have been sent off with a person remaining 30-day prescription, and no distinct path for how to cope with the agony — irrespective of whether from their fundamental ailments or the bodily dependency that accompanies extended-phrase use of painkillers — once that prescription ran out. (Maria Barry-Jester and Gold, 2/22)

KHN:
Journalists Critique Clinic Penalties And Complications Riddling Medicaid Rx Plan

Samantha Younger, a political correspondent for California Healthline, on Feb. 15 talked over how Medi-Cal individuals battle to get their prescription medicines on KCRW’s “Press Perform.” Interim Southern bureau editor Andy Miller talked about Medicare penalties for hospitals in Ga on Georgia Community Broadcasting’s “Lawmakers” on Feb. 10. (2/19)