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Fed up and frustrated, employees from West Broward Rehabilitation and Healthcare joined members from their union, United Healthcare Workers East, to protest what they say is a pattern of disrespect from their employer. "Every Friday, we got to run to the bank like we're some criminals to cash our checks, and sometimes when we get there, there's no money, we got to wait," said Callette Taylor. ..."They're not fixing the issue. Last week was Thanksgiving, most of us didn't have meals." (McAllister, 12/5)

Athena Health Care Systems, one of the largest providers of long-term care in Connecticut, is six months behind on paying health claims for workers on its health plan, President and CEO Lawrence Santilli said in a memo to employees obtained by The Connecticut Mirror. (Carlesso, 12/5)

Physicians leaving private practice for employment has hurt patient care quality, according to a recent survey of doctors commissioned by the Physicians Advocacy Institute. The survey polled 1,000 physicians employed by insurers, health systems, staffing agencies and private equity firms on how corporate ownership affects their workplace experience and ability to meet patients’ needs. The research was conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. (Devereaux, 12/5)

Nonprofit hospitals and health systems are recovering financially but more slowly than expected, according to a report Fitch Ratings published Tuesday. Much of the sector has broken even in operations on a month-to-month basis in 2023, but it happened later in the year and to a lesser extent than analysts anticipated, the credit ratings agency reported. Labor costs, although softening, remain the top pressure point. (Hudson, 12/5)

Banner Health ceased its hospice operations in Arizona and transitioned 100 staff to a nonprofit hospice organization providing services in the Phoenix and Tucson markets, effective Dec. 1. The Phoenix-based health system will continue to operate its hospice locations in Colorado. (Eastabrook, 12/5)

NorthShore—Edward-Elmhurst Health is now Endeavor Health, the Chicago-area nonprofit system announced Tuesday. Its website, signage, uniforms and other branding will start transitioning to the new name over the coming months. The system's hospitals will keep their names but be associated with the Endeavor brand. Other care sites will change to the Endeavor name. (Hudson, 12/5)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Readers Slam Hospital Monopolies And Blame The Feds For Understaffed Nursing Homes 

�鶹Ů�� Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories. (12/6)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Listen To The Latest '�鶹Ů�� Health News Minute' 

This week on the �鶹Ů�� Health News Minute: The U.S. faces a shortage of physical therapists, and more Americans face the prospect of dying broke because of the rising cost of long-term care. (12/5)

Expectant parents scrambling to ready the nursery and find affordable childcare, sometimes defer one important decision until late in the game: Choosing where to give birth. For anyone in that group or people planning pregnancies in the new year, this year's ratings of the "Best Hospitals for Maternity Care" by U.S. News & World Report offers a comprehensive cheat sheet. ... Instead of a traditional ranking system, the hospitals in each state were designated as “high performing” and “not high performing.” (Rodriguez, 12/5)