�鶹Ů��

Liz Dudek, secretary of the Agency for Health Care Administration, will retire Oct. 3 after more than 40 years in state government. Sam Verghese, head of the Department of Elder Affairs since 2014, is stepping down to be replaced by Scott's top pick for insurance commissioner, who was rejected for that job by the Cabinet this spring. Dudek and Verghese earned $141,000 a year. Dudek, 65, was one of the last remaining agency heads appointed in the early months of Scott's administration and oversaw a complete reform of Medicaid. (Auslen and Wallace, 9/21)

Liz Dudek, a longtime state health official who helped lead an overhaul of the Medicaid program, is retiring as secretary of the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, Gov. Rick Scott announced Wednesday. Dudek, who has served as secretary since March 2011, shortly after Scott took office, will be replaced on an interim basis by Deputy Secretary Justin Senior. Dudek's retirement from the $141,000-a-year job is effective Oct. 3. (Saunders, 9/21)

If the open-ended nurses strike at Allina Health’s Twin Cities hospitals continues through Oct. 1, striking nurses will have to begin paying for the full cost of their health care coverage. No new negotiations have been announced as the Minnesota Nurses Association’s strike stretched into its third week. Allina, meanwhile, has said about 500 staff nurses have crossed picket lines, joining some 1,500 replacement nurses to staff the five area hospitals, which include United Hospital in St. Paul. Thousands of nurses walked off the job on Labor Day, striking largely over issues related to Allina’s plan to end their union-only health plan and transition the nurses to the corporate plan that covers other Allina employees. (Cooney, 9/21)

A federal judge in Fort Lauderdale has tossed out of court a lawsuit filed three years ago by the U.S. Justice Department that claimed Florida health administrators had acted with “deliberate indifference to the suffering” of disabled and medically complex children who were being warehoused in nursing homes for lack of more appropriate accommodations with family members or in the community. (Marbin Miller, 9/21)

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services lab inspectors moved to revoke Theranos' lab certificate effective Sept. 5 after finding multiple deficiencies at the company's Newark, Calif., lab. The certificate revocation also would force the shutdown of its Scottsdale lab. But more than two weeks after the Sept. 5 shutdown date passed, the company continues to draw blood from metro Phoenix customers and process those blood samples at its Scottsdale lab. (Alltucker, 9/21)

Tobacco giants Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds have enlisted the help of a Long Beach public school teacher to persuade voters to reject a $2 cigarette tax increase on the November ballot, Proposition 56.The industry’s commercial, which began airing Sunday across the state, stars high school math and music teacher Davina Keiser. As she sets tests and pencils on empty desks in a classroom, Keiser says she was “astounded” to learn that Proposition 56 was written to undermine the state’s school funding guarantee. (Luna, 9/21)

Insurance Commissioner David Altmaier on Tuesday told Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Cabinet members that the Office of Insurance Regulation is “very close” to being finished with reviewing the proposal. The National Council on Compensation Insurance, which makes rate filings for workers’ compensation insurers, proposed the 19.6 percent hike primarily because of an April ruling by the Florida Supreme Court that said a limit on attorneys’ fees in workers’ compensation cases was unconstitutional. (9/22)

The hospital in Scott County that closed abruptly over the summer could reopen its doors under new ownership.The owner of the hospital, Pioneer Corp., has been trying to sell the facility, currently known as Pioneer Community Hospital of Scott in Oneida, Tenn., as part of a corporate bankruptcy proceeding and is getting close to reaching a deal, said Scott Phillips, founder of Healthcare Management Partners, which is advising Pioneer on its turnaround. (Fletcher, 9/21)

It’s not your typical prescription: “Take a selfie with a camel. Pet a porcupine. Ogle a galago. Repeat as needed. May be habit-forming, not that there’s anything wrong with that.” A few dozen patients at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek heeded that advice Wednesday, availing themselves of exotic animals on site for Pet Therapy Day — part of National Rehabilitation Awareness Week. (Peterson, 9/21)