Health Care Headlines

Covered California’s announcement last week that 2019 premiums are going up nearly 9 percent, on average, unleashed plenty of complaints aimed at Washington, Sacramento and the health care industry as a whole.

The pending suspension of Tri-City Medical Center’s psychiatric units is a red-flag warning of an approaching crisis that no one can afford to ignore.

Parkview Community Hospital Medical Center in Riverside will soon have a new owner.  The facility, which for 60 years has been an independent nonprofit hospital, will be acquired by AHMC Healthcare Inc., which runs hospitals in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

The Government Accountability Office yesterday released a report examining the characteristics of hospitals that participate in the 340B drug savings program and hospitals that do not participate in the program.

Adela Carranco was just 11 years old when her mother discovered she was planning to kill herself.  Her suicidal intentions were tapped out in cold detail on her cell phone, from options for ending her life—take pills, get run over, or slit her wrists—to notes saying goodbye to loved ones.

Our nation’s behavioral health system faces great challenges—from shortages of mental health professionals and inpatient beds to a lack of early intervention and prevention programs.

Several hospital and healthcare industry groups vowed to continue their legal challenge to 340B cuts pushed by the Trump administration after a court ruled against their appeal.

Premiums in California’s health insurance exchange will rise by an average of 8.7 percent next year, marking a return to more modest increases despite ongoing threats to the Affordable Care Act.

Dr. Atul Gawande is hitting the road.  In one of his first actions as a CEO1, Gawande is planning to travel across the country to meet with the employees he will serve through the health care venture2 being formed by Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, and Berkshire Hathaway.

Bev Baker-Ajene waited so long to get an adult-sized wheelchair for her teenage daughter, Savitri, that she eventually forgot she’d ordered it.

A promising new class of cancer treatments recruits the cells in our blood to fight tumors, using powerful gene-editing tools to transform a type of white blood cell — called a T cell — from an immune cell that normally targets bacterial or fungal infections into a living cancer drug.

Scientists on the hunt for anti-aging drugs say they’ve made an advance with tantalizing potential: Two experimental drugs appear to safely boost the immune systems of elderly humans.

Many people who attempt suicide end up in an emergency room for immediate treatment. But few of those suicide survivors get the follow-up care they need at a time when they are especially likely to attempt suicide again.

Most drugs have side effects, but sometimes they’re actually good news.  Researchers are now exploring whether some cheap and common drugs have side effects that could help people fight off the flu and other lung infections.

When Sally Rogers walked into the examination room at Ampla Health’s Lindhurst Clinic in tiny Linda, California, recently, psychiatrist Jothika Manepalli, MD, was waiting for her — on a wall-mounted TV monitor in the corner.

Among the hundreds of bills on the Legislature’s agenda for August are ones that would make key changes in the lives of California health care workers. Here are five to watch.

The Trump administration is freezing payments under an “Obamacare” program that protects insurers with sicker patients from financial losses, a move expected to add to premium increases next year.

The American struggle to curb opioid addiction could become collateral damage in President Donald Trump’s showdown on trade.

In spite of Republican attacks, the insurance markets under the Affordable Care Act are stubbornly resilient. While consumers can expect sharp price increases in some areas, premiums are going up modestly in others.

Diana Dooley may have led the largest agency in California’s government as secretary of health and human services for the past eight years, a job that led to her current post as Gov. Jerry Brown’s chief of staff—but she’s also a country gal from Hanford, in the Central Valley.

Sacramento County physician Sharad Jain correctly identified a major challenge facing those who provide medical care for the homeless: How to ensure that these vulnerable individuals stay on a path toward healing once they no longer need the services of a hospital (“Homeless patients discharged to the streets? Hospitals can do better,” Viewpoints, June 25).

In his spare time, when he feels up to it, Ronnie Roberts walks through hospital parking lots slipping informational flyers onto every windshield.

Human trafficking is an issue in nearly every corner of the country. Earlier this year, hospital and health system leaders, legal experts, advocates and survivors discussed how the hospital field could work together most effectively to combat human trafficking.

There is another opioid crisis happening in the U.S., and it has nothing to do with the overdose epidemic: Hospitals are frequently running out of widely used injected painkillers.

Patients with Blue Shield Covered California or off-exchange individual Blue Shield plans will have full in-network access at Thousand Oaks’ Los Robles Regional Medical Center beginning July 1.

For years, the rate of suicide has been on the rise. As reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicides have increased by more than 25 percent during the past decade. It is now the tenth-leading cause of death in the U.S., costing more than $44 billion annually.  

Recognizing the connection between people’s finances (income, cost of living and socioeconomic status) and their health, California’s hospitals have developed innovative community-based programs and activities that address key issues such as poverty, food insecurity, housing instability and homelessness, vocational training, and employment and income.

A new report shows about half of seriously ill Californians have access to palliative care. The number is an improvement over 4 years ago, but some doctors say the state could still do a better job of caring for these patients.

House calls are making a comeback, with a virtual twist: Three of the Sacramento region’s four major health providers – Kaiser Permanente, UC Davis Health and now Sutter Health – offer video visits with primary care providers.

Tara Neubrand is a pediatric emergency-medicine physician at a large hospital in Denver, Colorado, which has one of the main pediatric trauma centers in the area. She and her colleagues frequently treat kids who have been abused or have experienced other traumatic events, and who have been placed in the foster-care system. Since April, she has seen three toddlers from Guatemala and Honduras—two boys and a girl who were forcibly separated from their parents by Border Patrol agents at the U.S.–Mexico border.

Feliciano Pagan stood at his front door when the MANNA food truck pulled up to his two-story brick row home.

The health venture established byAmazon.com Inc., Berkshire Hathaway Inc. andJPMorgan Chase & Co. will take aim at intermediaries in the health-care system as a part of a broad effort to reduce wasteful spending, the venture’s newly named chief executive officer said.

The California Hospital Association and other partners this week launched Behavioral Health Action, a statewide effort to engage candidates and highlight the importance of addressing behavioral health issues in 2018 elections.

For the women and men of America’s hospitals and health systems, nothing is more important than the safety of the patients for whom they are privileged to care. The hospital field has been working diligently to improve care. And last week we got more confirmation that those efforts are having an enormous impact.

Shortages of intravenous saline and other fluids are beginning to improve, according to the Food and Drug Administration. “Baxter is now producing at significantly higher levels,” said Douglas Throckmorton, M.D., deputy director for regulatory programs at FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.

Two common herpes viruses appear to play a role in Alzheimer’s disease.  The viruses, best known for causing a distinctive skin rash in young children, are abundant in brain tissue from people with Alzheimer’s, a team of scientists reports Thursday in Neuron. The team also found evidence that the viruses can interact with brain cells in ways that could accelerate the disease.

Lawmakers are considering several bills this month aimed at stabilizing California’s health insurance marketplace, despite a state budget deal that effectively killed other, more expensive proposals.

Behavioral Health Action is a pioneering coalition joining together to elevate important behavioral health issues during the 2018 elections.

Smoking in the U.S. has hit another all-time low.  About 14 percent of U.S adults were smokers last year, down from about 16 percent the year before, government figures show.

As California’s November election campaign begins to take shape, a new coalition of more than 50 non-traditional partners co-founded by CHA has launched a statewide effort to engage candidates and raise awareness about the importance of addressing behavioral health issues in the state.

The California Hospital Association announced its support for a new bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., that would “protect and enhance” the 340B drug- pricing program.

A state appeals court has reinstated — at least for now — California’s law allowing terminally ill people to end their lives.

The recent tragic suicides of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain and designer Kate Spade have once again put a spotlight on an issue that too many of us are afraid to confront – behavioral health. And it’s important to focus on our own friends, family, co-workers and neighbors who struggle day in and day out with mental illness.

In Maryland, Carmela Coyle is known as a reformer.  During her tenure as president of the Maryland Hospital Association, she helped establish a first-of-its kind state program that capped hospitals’ yearly revenue — a counterintuitive move for a leader of a profit-hungry industry.

In the state that’s leading the opposition to many of President Donald Trump’s health policies, California voters will face a stark choice on the November ballot: keep up the resistance or fall in line.

Leaders at more than 600 Joint Commission-accredited hospitals representing independent and health system organizations across the country have successfully transitioned to The Joint Commission’s new direct data submission platform for reporting calendar year (CY) 2017 electronic clinical quality measure (eCQM) data in 2018, agency officials reveal.

After more than a decade of construction, Cottage Health is nearing completion of its $750 million seismic retrofit project for Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital. 

The new president-elect of the American Medical Association (AMA) will be just the fourth psychiatrist to ever hold the position as well as the first female psychiatrist and the first African American woman to do so.

As the medical director for the Los Angeles County Fire Department, Dr. Clayton Kazan sees the crunch at the doors of the emergency departments and says more hospitals need to come to the table to talk about how to ease it.

Drug shortages, including those compounded by last year’s hurricanes, are an “urgent public health crisis,” according to a report prepared by the American Medical Association (AMA) Council on Science and Public Health.

Opponents of Senate Bill 1156 (Leyva) rallied outside the State Capitol today to urge the California Assembly Health Committee to protect dialysis and transplant patients from an insurer-backed bill that gives the insurance industry a backdoor way to drop low-income dialysis and transplant patients from their health insurance rolls.

Few healthcare organizations are investing in social determinants of health technology, and while an uptick is expected, the market will remain relatively weak until providers find the best way to use the data, according to a new analysis from Patchwise Labs.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra pledged Friday to redouble his efforts as the Affordable Care Act’s leading defender, saying attacks by the Trump Administration threaten health care for millions of Americans.

The deaths of the designer Kate Spade and the chef Anthony Bourdain, both of whom committed suicide this week, were not simply pop culture tragedies. They were the latest markers of an intractable public health crisis that has been unfolding in slow motion for a generation.

President Donald Trump signed a bill into law Wednesday that will give veterans more freedom to see doctors outside the troubled Veterans Affairs system, a major shift aimed at reducing wait times and improving care by steering more patients to the private sector.

Kate Spade’s apparent suicide on Tuesday is a tragic reminder that mental health problems do not discriminate—they can plague anyone, no matter how successful they seem. As people grieve today, many are also sharing critical hotlines and resources for people struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts. The New York Times included the phone number for National Suicide Prevention Lifeline in its news story announcing Spade’s death, along with a link pointing toward additional resources.

As California struggles to meet children’s mental health needs, lawmakers are pressing for two bills that would take steps to address the problem.

Latney was too weak to do simple household chores.  The 51-year-old had been diagnosed with lung cancer and, as she began treatment, struggled to stand over her stove long enough to prepare a meal. She didn’t really want to eat, anyway ― her intensive chemotherapy and radiation left her nauseated and exhausted. But high-calorie, protein-rich meals are essential for cancer patients, who face extreme weight loss, according to cancer experts.

Total reimbursement for brand-name prescription drugs in Medicare Part D increased 77% between 2011 and 2015, nearly six times faster than inflation, despite a 17% decrease in the number of prescriptions, according to a report released today by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General.

Data released today by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) show continued progress in improving patient safety, a signal that initiatives led by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) are helping to make care safer. National efforts to reduce hospital-acquired conditions, such as adverse drug events and injuries from falls, helped prevent an estimated 8,000 deaths and save $2.9 billion between 2014 and 2016, according to the report.

A panel of policy experts offered the Senate Finance Committee their wish list of top priorities for rural healthcare in the coming years.

Getting a new pharmaceutical from an idea in the chemistry lab to market takes many years and billions of dollars. Each year just several dozen new drugs are approved for use in the United States.

National Day of Awareness unites hospitals, health systems, nurses, doctors and other professionals from across the country, as well the local and national organizations they work with, to combat violence through the use of digital media.

California is in the midst of critical health policy discussions about how to achieve the long sought-after goal of covering every person in the state.

Getting veterans the medical care they need quickly and efficiently has been a political goal in Washington for years.

As a Level I Trauma Center on Chicago’s West Side, caregivers at Mount Sinai Hospital know just how bad the city’s gun violence problem can get from the injuries they treat.

A novel virus, moderately contagious and moderately lethal, has surfaced and is spreading rapidly around the globe. Outbreaks first appear in Frankfurt, Germany, and Caracas, Venezuela. The virus is transmitted person-to-person, primarily by coughing. There are no effective antivirals or vaccines. U.S. troops stationed abroad are infected. Now the first case to reach the United States had been identified on a small college campus in Massachusetts.

People should start getting screened for colon cancer at age 45 instead of at 50, the American Cancer Society said Wednesday.

The Mental Health Services Act has long supplied the bulk of funding for California counties to prevent and treat mental illness among Medi-Cal patients. But some counties aren’t using the money. San Luis Obispo County had a $14.7 million fund balance at the end of the 2015-2016 fiscal year. 

After recent turmoil over the seeming impending closure of Community Medical Center Long Beach, the hospital may get a new operator after all.

Across California, a new model of health care has taken hold in the state’s most forward-looking emergency medical services (EMS) agencies. Community paramedics are demonstrating new ways to meet the needs of people in their communities.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, an opportunity to raise awareness of those living with mental or behavioral health issues and to help reduce the stigma so many experience. In the U.S., one in four Americans experiences a mental illness or substance use disorder each year, and the majority also have a comorbid physical health condition.

Health insurance plans cover a variety of medical procedures, prescriptions and provider visits. A recent change in how some plans interpret health-related insurance benefits may see more plans offering food-based benefits, including meals and healthy groceries.

The rapid pace of change in health care, from system redesign to new payment models to increased data reporting and electronic interoperability, has clinician attention divided among many competing priorities.

Today, Senator Richard D. Roth’s Medical Records Protection Act received unanimous support from the Senate Appropriations Committee. A 7 to 0 vote now has SB 1238 on its way to the Senate Floor.

Preserving and improving access to health care should be a priority for lawmakers. But a proposal now under consideration in the state Assembly would do the opposite dismantling our state’s health care system as we know it, resulting in massive cuts to patient care services and the potential loss of 175,000 jobs across the state.

Digital tools and web presence play key roles when patients select a provider, Doctor.com said in a new healthcare customer experience study. In fact, two-thirds of patients said they will choose a provider because of a strong online presence.

Imagine that the next time you see your doctor, she says you have a life-threatening disease. The catch? A computer has performed your diagnosis, which is too complex for humans to understand entirely. What your doctor can explain, however, is that the computer is almost always right.

CHOC’s brand new Mental Health Inpatient Center has 18 bright, airy rooms with common recreational areas and cheery leaf motifs adorning its entryways and walls.

The cost of health insurance continues to climb in California.  Estimates released Thursday by Covered California, the state insurance marketplace, project that premiums in the individual market will rise 11 percent next year, while enrollment in the exchange — which is larger than any other state’s — will drop 12 percent.

The House of Representatives last night voted 347-70 to approve bipartisan legislation to streamline and consolidate the Department of Veterans Affairs’ community care programs into a permanent Veterans Community Care Program. As amended, the VA MISSION Act of 2018 (S. 2372) would require access to community care based on certain access criteria, doing away with the 40-mile or 30-day wait period currently required through the Choice Program.

Tucked into the federal budget law Congress passed in February was a provision that significantly expands the use of telemedicine—long a hyped healthcare reform and now poised to go mainstream within five to 10 years.

Children with special needs often languish for months waiting to get needed medical equipment and supplies through a state health care program designed to help them, according to a new report.

Zika, polio and adenovirus are hardly the first trio that comes to mind when considering the ‘next big thing’ in cancer therapy. Polio alone killed over 3,000 Americans per year in the 1950s before vaccination programs and continues to ravage the developing world, while babies with severe brain deformities due to Zika are still being born in South America.

SB 1121, which is making its way through the California Legislature, would allow businesses to be sued for data breaches even when no one was actually injured.

America’s opioid epidemic has devastated many communities. More than 42,000 deaths were attributed to the painkillers in 2016, in both prescription and illegal forms.

Those on all sides of the health care debate agree on one thing: health care costs continue to rise in California and across the country.

Closer coordination between county and city governments, better vaccine coverage for homeless and drug-using residents and more prompt use of volunteer nurses are among 21 recommendations included in a hepatitis A outbreak report released Thursday by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors.

During the 2018 midterm elections, the Kaiser Family Foundation will be tracking a unique group of voters – voters who say a congressional candidate’s position on health care will be the “most important factor” in their 2018 congressional vote choice. One-fourth of all voters are “health care voters,” including large shares of women and Democratic voters. This interactive allows users to examine the demographic profile of health care voters and compare them to voters who do not feel as strongly about a candidate’s position on health care.

Gov. Jerry Brown never had to decide whether to support single-payer health care because a bill never reached his desk. But just because the Legislature isn’t considering it this year doesn’t mean the idea has died — and even without it, California’s next governor will have plenty of health policy problems to worry about.

Back in February, officials in the OC dislodged about 700 homeless people who were camped along the Santa Ana Riverbed. In April, another 200 were moved from the city’s Civic Center. Many were housed in motels before getting placed into shelters. 

U.S. regulators said on Wednesday that Mylan NV’s EpiPen products are in shortage, due to manufacturing delays that are creating intermittent supply constraints of the emergency allergy treatment.

A House bill introduced Wednesday would expand the amount of time that new moms could remain on Medicaid, in an effort to reduce the number of pregnancy or childbirth-related deaths.