�鶹Ů��

Kaiser Permanente's 2,600 California mental health clinicians are expected to begin a weeklong strike Monday to highlight what they say is inadequate staffing and long wait times for appointments. (Parr, 1/10)

Hundreds of Kaiser Permanente's mental health professionals plan to start a weeklong strike throughout California Monday to protest a lack of staffing they say is affecting care. Kaiser Permanente's 2,600 psychologists, therapists and social workers will launch the walkout to demand the health care provider offer timely, quality mental health care at its psychiatry departments and clinics, said Jim Clifford, a union member and San Diego psychiatric therapist. Clifford said some patients have to wait up to two months for follow-up appointments, which prolongs the recovery process and at times even truncates it. (1/12)

An advisory panel is recommending that the state of Arkansas explore offering Medicare managed care plans to retired state and public school employees who are covered by the federal program for the elderly and disabled. About 18,000 retired state and school employees are enrolled in state plans that supplement traditional Medicare coverage. Under the recommendation by the State and Public School Life and Health Insurance Board's benefits subcommittee, the board would solicit proposals from companies that offer Medicare Advantage plans. (1/10)

Unlike its counterparts in other states, the Georgia Hospital Association has not been seen as actively advocating for Medicaid expansion. A number of states have expanded their Medicaid programs, making more low-income people eligible for benefits and thus helping hospitals financially by reducing their numbers of uninsured patients. But expansion has gone nowhere in Georgia. (Miller, 1/11)

Top Illinois health officials say too many communities don't have access to trauma care. The agency on Sunday released a study recommending ways the state can increase access to emergency medical care in so-called "trauma center deserts." The report says the centers increase a person's odds of survival. (1/11)

A federal judge ruled Dec. 22 in a civil case challenging the wait lists that holding mentally ill people in jails without treatment violates their constitutional rights, but Washington has yet to implement changes. Hundreds of people like Karen Hellmuth remain jailed awaiting competency evaluations, some up to 13 weeks. (Bellisle, 1/10)

Since May, a string of states have passed laws that give critically ill patients the right to try medications that have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Deemed “Right to Try” laws, they have passed quickly and often unanimously in Colorado, Michigan, Missouri, Louisiana and Arizona .... The laws do not seem to have helped anyone obtain experimental medicine, as the drug companies are not interested in supplying unapproved medications outside the supervision of the F.D.A. But that seems almost beside the point to the Goldwater Institute, the libertarian group behind legislative efforts to pass Right to Try laws. (Turkewitz, 1/10)

Oregon began covering the cost of reassignment surgery for transgender people on Medicaid in January. It also covers things like hormone therapy and puberty suppression. (Foden-Vencil, 1/10)

Rita Gorenflo’s 7-year-old son Nathaniel was in severe pain from a sinus infection. But since the boy was covered by Medicaid, she couldn’t immediately find a specialist willing to see him. After days of calling, she was finally able to get Nathaniel an appointment nearly a week later near their South Florida home. That was in 2005. Last month, ruling in a lawsuit brought by the state’s pediatricians and patient advocacy groups, a federal district judge in Miami determined Nathaniel’s wait was “unreasonable” and that Florida’s Medicaid program was failing him and nearly 2 million other children by not paying enough money to doctors and dentists to ensure the kids have adequate access to care. The Florida case is the latest effort to get federal judges to force states to increase Medicaid provider payment rates for the state and federal program that covers about 70 million low-income Americans. (Galewitz, 1/12)

The push to legalize medical marijuana in Florida continues with a two-pronged campaign, supporters said on Friday, sharing plans to mount another ballot drive in 2016 as a way to pressure state lawmakers to consider legislation permitting prescription pot. A constitutional amendment to legalize medical marijuana in Florida last year fell just short of the 60 percent approval needed to pass in the state. (Cotterell, 1/9)

Christina Swentzell was homeless, sleeping in a shelter and volunteering at Father Woody's Haven of Hope when the nausea gripped her. "If I had been employed and had insurance, I would have gone to the doctor, but I just hoped for the best," she said. Eventually, she sought help at a 37-foot-long mobile clinic, operated by the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless' Health Outreach Program, and called the HOP. (McGhee, 1/11)

Gov. Bobby Jindal got only good news when the federal Medicaid agency signed off on financing plans for his LSU hospital privatization deals. But the result was more mixed for lawmakers and future governors, who learned Jindal's deals will leave them with a lingering budget worry after he's gone. Approval from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, known as CMS, will keep money flowing to pay for the privatization contracts and ensure care for the uninsured won't be upended. (DeSlatte, 1/11)

The Medical College of Wisconsin has paid $840,000 to settle claims it billed Medicare for neurosurgeries at which teaching physicians weren't overseeing residents to the degree required by law. The payment, announced Friday by the U.S. attorney's office, resolves a False Claims Act lawsuit claiming the college billed for surgeries between 2006 and 2013 as though teaching physicians were always present. The whistle-blower who first filed the False Claims action under seal, a surgeon in residency at the college, will be entitled to a percentage of the recovered amount. (Vielmetti, 1/9)

These days, treatment is widely available at pharmacies, grocery stores and discount retailers. For many consumers, the convenient option comes at the right time, given dramatic increases in out-of-pocket health care costs. (Zdechlik, 1/12)

More than 40 percent of South Florida hospitals fell below national standards for preventing certain types of common infections in their patients in 2013, according to federal data. At the same time, 56 percent of local hospitals performed better than expected in controlling infections, according to the same data, information that South Florida consumers could use when choosing a hospital. (Nehamas, 1/11)