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The administration of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is making a strategic concession in the bitter political fight over hospital funding cuts by restoring $14.1 million to a half-dozen of the state’s smaller hospitals. The administration is shifting funds originally budgeted for the larger hospital groups to six small independent hospitals: Bristol, Day Kimball, Griffin, Charlotte Hungerford, Johnson Memorial and Milford. (Pazniokas, 10/9)

Connecticut's hospitals, embroiled in a battle with Gov. Dannel P. Malloy over cuts in Medicaid payments, are not ruling out a path taken by their counterparts in New Hampshire: possible legal action. That state's hospital association decided in 2011 to sue New Hampshire after its Republican-controlled Legislature cut Medicaid funding by more than $130 million, but retained a tax on hospitals that was supposed to help the state gain matching federal money to pay for health care for the poor. (Haigh, 10/11)

West Chester Hospital and its parent company, UC Health, agreed to pay $4.1 million to settle allegations that Medicare and Medicaid were billed for medically unnecessary spine surgeries, and the doctor who performed the surgeries may have fled the country, according to the Justice Department. This settlement resolves allegations that West Chester Hospital submitted claims to Medicare and Medicaid for the spine surgeries performed between 2009 and 2013 by Dr. Abubakar Atiq Durrani, according to a press release. (Knight, 10/10)

Governor Charlie Baker, staring down a brutal opioid epidemic, wants to give hospitals new power to force treatment on substance abusers who pose a danger to themselves or others. Administration officials say the governor plans to file legislation this week giving hospitals the authority to hold addicts against their will for three days, evaluate them, and decide whether to seek legal permission for substantially longer commitments. (Scharfenberg, 10/11)

Federal regulators said conditions at Washington state's largest psychiatric hospital were so dangerous for patients that they threatened to cut millions of dollars in funding three times this year. The state agency that oversees Western State Hospital said Thursday that they are addressing the problems, but they need more money and staff to make the facility safe. (Bellisle, 10/11)

Lawyers for Gov. Terry Branstad and his critics argued in court Thursday over whether he broke the law by using his line item veto authority to effectively shutter two state mental hospitals. Branstad in July vetoed a bipartisan compromise plan that would have reversed his closure of the mental institution at Mount Pleasant and would have temporarily kept open a similar facility at Clarinda. (Leys, 10/9)