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Pharmacy-benefit managers for the state-employee health insurance program are challenging an attempt to require them to repay $39.2 million to the Florida Department of Management Services. Medco Health Solutions, Inc. and Express Scripts, Inc., which are subsidiaries of the same holding company, have filed a series of legal petitions that were sent this month to the state Division of Administrative Hearings. (8/31)

The governors of all six New England states have sent a letter urging the head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to tighten warnings on opioids.The governors said the FDA should require changes on labels for immediate release opioids to make sure patients and doctors understand the risk of addiction, overdose, neonatal abstinence syndrome and death associated with the drugs. (8/31)

The service at issue, known as extended, or complex, nursing care, involves a nurse providing services in a person’s home for more than two hours at a time. Clients must have their services reauthorized periodically to continue receiving them. Data from the state Department of Social Services shows the denial rate for requests for extended nursing services has risen sharply since the beginning of the year. (Levin Becker, 9/1)

Santa Clara County's $300 million expansion and seismic upgrade at Valley Medical Center is already two years behind schedule -- with no hope of opening next month in time for its latest deadline. Now, in an increasingly bitter dispute that played out Monday at the construction site, the county declared it intends to fire Turner Construction, the company overseeing the project and one of the country's biggest builders, whom county officials blame for falling woefully behind on the job. (De Sa, 8/31)

Dr. David Burkons graduated from medical school and began practicing obstetrics and gynecology in 1973 – the same year of the Supreme Court’s landmark abortion decision in Roe v. Wade. Burkons liked delivering babies but he is also committed to serving his patients, including those who choose abortions. (Tribble, 8/31)

More than 1,100 Georgia pediatricians have joined a new physician-led network that aims to improve quality of care and eventually contract for payments from insurers. The sign-ups represent roughly one-third of the pediatricians practicing in the state. Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, the major pediatric hospital system in the metro area, helped create the nonprofit entity, called the Children’s Care Network. (MIller, 9/1)