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California Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris on Friday approved the hotly debated sale of a chain of six struggling Catholic hospitals — including two in Los Angeles County — but imposed strict conditions on how they will be managed. The requirements left the future of the Daughters of Charity Health System hospitals in doubt — at least for several days. Prime Healthcare Services Inc. of Ontario said it would need days to review Harris’ ruling before deciding whether to proceed with the purchase, which includes St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood and St. Vincent Medical Center near downtown Los Angeles. (Pfeifer and Panzar, 2/20)

After months of intense review and several fiery public hearings, California Attorney General Kamala Harris on Friday approved the sale of the Daughters of Charity Health System to a controversial Southern California hospital chain for $843 million. (Seipel, 2/20)

Blessing a proposed hospital sale that has divided powerful health care unions, California Attorney General Kamala Harris on Friday approved Prime Healthcare’s purchase of six nonprofit hospitals comprising the Daughters of Charity Health System. (White, 2/20)

A few years ago, the New York City Human Resources Administration decided to try a new way to root out fraud among people receiving government benefits. Data detectives began running benefit recipients through a computerized pattern-recognition system. They discovered that the behavior of a small percentage of people stood out. The anomalies in themselves didn’t constitute fraud, but they pointed the agency’s data scientists in potentially fruitful directions. (Singer, 2/20)

Over the course of a decade, California lawmakers have considered a dozen bills to regulate the use of psychiatric drugs in the nation's largest foster care system. Yet, despite the alarm over children medicated as young as 4 and teens so doped they drooled and became obese, just one became law: a bill to speed up court approval so foster children could get drugs more quickly. (de Sa, 2/21)

They are the two darlings of Fairfax County. Inova, the largest health care provider in Northern Virginia and easily the largest employer in a county full of Fortune 500 companies. George Mason University, the onetime commuter school that grew into the top research university in the commonwealth. ... Both organizations’ headquarters are within a short drive of the 117-acre campus Inova plans to purchase for a center of genomics and personalized medicine, an endeavor that J. Knox Singleton, Inova chief executive, says will require multiple university partnerships. And yet the two cannot seem to see eye to eye on what Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) called the centerpiece to “building a new Virginia economy.” (O'Connell, 2/22)

Donuts are out, whole-wheat muffins in, and Virginia’s General Assembly is fed up: It wants to bring back the old sugary school bake sale. Federal guidelines that took effect this school year have banished sales of nutritionally dubious treats to students during school hours. Anything sold while school is in session must meet the same nutritional guidelines as school lunch and breakfast. That might be good for the fight against childhood obesity, but it has taken a big bite out of bake-sale proceeds at schools such as Brooke Point High School in Stafford County. (Vozzella, 2/21)

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has proposed a bill that would require officials at nonprofit hospitals to disclose any financial benefits they stand to gain if the hospital is bought by a for-profit entity. Malloy’s bill would require the disclosure as part of the approval process, and he and other proponents said it would increase transparency. (Savino, 2/21)

The CMS will not renew a Medicaid waiver in Florida expiring in June that provides more than $1 billion a year to help the state's hospitals cover uncompensated-care costs for low-income and uninsured patients. The move may put additional pressure on state Republican leaders to consider expanding Medicaid. Since 2005, Florida has had a Section 1115 Medicaid waiver that establishes a low-income funding pool to aid the state's hospitals. The state has received between $1 billion and $2 billion annually to support its safety net providers. (Dickson, 2/21)

The Agency for Health Care Administration on Friday announced it will let 22 new nursing homes open across the state, and will allow another 11 existing facilities to expand. The highly competitive bid process ends Florida’s 14-year ban on new construction. (Aboraya, 2/21)

Three percent of patients hospitalized in Pennsylvania in fiscal 2014 were "super-utilizers" - people admitted five or more times in a year, according to a new report from the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council. Those 21,308 people accounted for 11 percent of total admissions and 14 percent of hospital days. The report estimated that super-utilizers were responsible for $545 million - 14 percent - of Medicare payments for inpatient stays and $216 million - 17 percent - of Medicaid payments in 2012. (Burling, 2/20)

Hundreds of people with developmental and mental health disabilities around North Carolina are faced with losing their homes – again – as state funding to support them is running out. The people at risk are those who live in group homes with six or fewer residents who have part of their living expenses paid for by state dollars. They’re people who lost Medicaid-funded personal care services in 2012 when the General Assembly tightened guidelines on who could receive those dollars. (Hoban, 2/23)