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Regina Borthwick, director of clinical care coordination at Hays Medical Center, said home visits and follow-up calls are important parts of efforts to keep patients from being readmitted to the hospital. ... Hospitals have had a strong incentive to reduce readmissions since 2012, when a provision of the Affordable Care Act took effect that requires most hospitals to track readmissions within 30 days after a Medicare patient was discharged. Hospitals with higher-than-expected rates are penalized. Some people have raised concerns, however, that hospitals are being punished for taking low-income and seriously ill patients, who typically have higher readmission rates. Borthwick said the Hays hospital was able to reduce its readmissions by calling to follow up with patients, connecting them with health care resources and educating patients about their conditions in everyday terms. (Wingerter, 10/12)

The contract to provide health services to the more than 20,000 men and women in state prisons is back up for grabs with the current quarter billion-dollar deal is set to expire in early 2017. The current provider, Centurion of Tennessee, signed a $270 million in 2013 that was set to expire this year. That contract has been extended through February 2017, but the state has officially opened a bidding process to allow any company to vie for the lucrative deal, said Tennessee Department of Correction spokeswoman Neysa Taylor. (Boucher, 10/12)

A federal judge has released the state of Delaware from a 2011 settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice, affirming that the state has reformed its public mental health system. Local news organizations report that U.S. District Court judge Leonard P. Stark signed the order Tuesday after the DOJ and the state filed a motion to dismiss the settlement agreement. (10/12)

How should the Georgia Medicaid program spend the $110 million penalty to be paid by Tenet Healthcare as part of a fraud case settlement? The net amount is the biggest Medicaid fraud recovery in Georgia history, according to the state Attorney General’s office. By law, it must go to Medicaid, not to the state’s general treasury. The money is part of Tenet’s payment of more than $513 million to settle the case of Medicaid fraud involving some metro Atlanta hospitals. The Texas-based chain has since sold all its Georgia hospitals, but the misconduct occurred while Tenet was the owner. (Miller, 10/12)

A Colorado spokesman for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs violated privacy rules when he disclosed protected medical information about a Vietnam veteran more than two years ago to The Denver Post, but the agency did little more than retrain him, the agency admits in a recent letter. Sallie Houser-Hanfelder, director of VA’s Eastern Colorado Health System, said in a two-page letter to Michael Beckley that while his protected health information “was impermissibly disclosed to the news media, resulting in a privacy breach,” the misconduct was just a gaffe in paperwork rather than malicious. (Migoya, 10/12)

A California district attorney on Wednesday announced a civil lawsuit against two fetal tissue companies, claiming they have illegally sold fetal tissue for profit. The issue of profits from the sale of fetal tissue was thrust into the spotlight last year due to undercover videos targeting Planned Parenthood. Multiple state investigations have since found no wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood. In this case, though, the Orange County district attorney says two companies, DaVinci Biosciences and DV Biologics, which share some of the same owners, illegally sold fetal tissue for profit. (Sullivan, 10/12)

Founded in 2007 by a team of medical students, BRIDGE stands for Building Relationships and Initiatives Dedicated to Gaining Equality. BRIDGE Healthcare is open from 5:30 to 9 p.m. every Tuesday and staffed by first- and second-year students who confer with their fourth-year peers. The clinic is overseen by physicians who donate their time and expertise, and those doctors must approve all medical treatments as well as write all prescriptions. The collaborative effort also includes students and professionals in the fields of physical therapy, social work, public health and pharmacology. (McKenzie, 10/12)

The Albany soda tax is one of three similar measures on Bay Area ballots this November — San Francisco and Oakland have also proposed such a tax. All three are modeled on one passed in Berkeley in 2014. Albany’s tax would charge distributors at one cent per fluid ounce and includes an exemption for distributors serving businesses with less than $100,000 in gross receipts per year. All three raise taxes on distributors, rather than the actual sale of sweetened beverages, and all send the money rasied to the general fund. (Esper, 10/12)

Seventy-seven percent of Florida voters support medical marijuana, according to a new survey of likely voters. The University of North Florida poll shows broad support for expanding access to the drug, which is currently available to people with certain chronic illnesses. UNF pollster Michael Binder says the results bode well for proponents of Constitutional Amendment 2, who need the support of 60% of voters in order to pass the measure. (Payne, 10/11)

A beverage processing plant in Hopkins has been identified as the likely source of a Legionnaires' disease outbreak in that community. Samples from a single cooling tower at Citrus Systems, Inc., contained Legionella bacteria, which causes Legionnaires' disease, public health investigators said Wednesday. The company's products aren't affected. The bacteria exactly matched the strain taken from patients who contracted the respiratory infection, according to the Minnesota Department of Health. (Benson, 10/12)

The Minnesota Department of Health reported Wednesday that the three-year-old cooling tower at the Citrus Systems juice manufacturing plant near downtown Hopkins was the culprit, and that testing found an exact genetic match between Legionella bacterial samples from the tower and from four of the sickened patients. The tower was sanitized on Sept. 27, and no new infections have been reported since Sept. 23, meaning “the outbreak for all intents and purposes is over,” said Richard Danila, deputy state epidemiologist. (Olson, 10/12)