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North Carolina children insured through Medicaid will remain covered for another year as the state works its way through recertifications of everyone on the program. Health experts praise the move, which they say should help protect children from losing coverage over procedural issues when they would otherwise still be eligible during the process known as the “unwinding,” where states have been disenrolling people who gained Medicaid during the pandemic. (Fernandez, 12/13)

An Arlington County doctor who prosecutors said “flooded” Virginia with more than 1 million oxycodone pills she prescribed over a decade was convicted Tuesday of a drug distribution conspiracy. Kirsten Van Steenberg Ball testified at her trial in U.S. District Court in Alexandria that she kept prescribing oxycodone to patients who failed drug tests, shared pills with others in violation of criminal laws or neglected to provide documentation that she requested. An undercover FBI agent testified that he kept obtaining oxycodone prescriptions from Ball after all of those lapses. (Rizzo, 12/12)

In a statement on Tuesday, Dec, 12, the U.S. General Services Administration Great Lakes Region said water testing on Nov. 8 determined elevated levels of the bacteria in specific test points. "Immediately after receiving these test results, GSA notified building occupants, shut off the affected water outlets, and restricted access to the outlets. In addition, GSA is continuing to flush water through these points while developing a full building water flushing and sampling testing plan," a GSA spokesperson said in the statement. (Booth-Singleton, 12/12)

Florida is asking a federal appeals court to overturn a district judge’s ruling in a decade-long battle about children with complex medical needs receiving care in nursing homes, describing a key part of the ruling as an “arbitrary and unachievable” goal. A panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled Jan. 24 to hear arguments in the state’s appeal of a ruling by U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks that the Florida Medicaid program violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. (Saunders, 12/12)

Florida officials leveled sanctions — including a fine — on a Broward County high school Tuesday for allowing a transgender female student who was born as a biological male to play on the girls’ volleyball team. Carried out by the Florida High School Athletic Association, the move is a substantial one for the state, marking what appears the be the first time a school has been penalized over the 2021 “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act” touted by Gov. Ron DeSantis that bans transgender women and girls from competing in women’s and girls’ sports. (Atterbury, 12/12)

It was February 10, 2020, just weeks away from the COVID-19 pandemic shutting down statehouses and halting any legislation from moving forward. But on that day, the South Dakota legislature was poised to vote on House Bill 1057, a measure to ban gender-affirming care for youth. Dozens of bills just like this one had been introduced in other statehouses. South Dakota, with its deep red House and Senate and conservative governor, was seen as a bellwether. Passing HB 1057 would lay the groundwork for its many siblings nationwide. (Sosin, 12/12)

Wyoming State Parks has a new way to make sure bumpy trails or steep inclines don’t keep people from spending time enjoying the outdoors – the TrackMaster Series 2 mobility chair. Instead of traditional wheels, the motorized device has big, durable rubber tracks, which helps it go places where normal wheelchairs can’t. The agency is one of 18 state parks across the country to receive the chair through a grant from the Ford Bronco Wild Fund and administered by the America’s State Parks Foundation. The goal is to increase access to parks and outdoor recreation opportunities for those with mobility challenges. (Habermann, 12/12)

Hepatitis A is on the rise among homeless people and those who use illicit drugs in Massachusetts, state health officials said Tuesday. The highly contagious virus and liver infection was discovered in six people last month in three counties surrounding Boston — Suffolk, Norfolk and Plymouth — as well as in Hampden County in western Massachusetts, they said. No deaths were reported, but some patients were hospitalized, the state Public Health Department said in a statement. Four of the six patients are men 36 and older. (Romero, 12/13)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Millions In Opioid Settlement Funds Sit Untouched As Overdose Deaths Rise

Nearly a year after Montana began receiving millions of dollars to invest in efforts to combat the opioid crisis, much of that money remains untouched. Meanwhile, the state’s opioid overdose and death counts continue to rise. The money is part of the approximately $50 billion that states and local governments will receive nationwide in opioid settlement funds over nearly two decades. The payments come from more than a dozen companies that made, distributed, or sold prescription opioid painkillers that were sued for their role in fueling the overdose epidemic. (Houghton and Pattani, 12/13)