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A settlement last January between the ACLU of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services called for the state to reduce treatment delays for defendants ordered by courts to receive mental-health care. The settlement followed an October 2015 lawsuit alleging that severely mentally ill defendants languished in Pennsylvania's county jails, sometimes for more than a year, while awaiting treatment to restore competence, so they could stand trial.Not much has changed. (Brubaker, 1/25)

California faces a $76.67 billion cost to provide healthcare and dental benefits to retired state employees, state Controller Betty Yee reported Wednesday, an increase of $2.49 billion over the previous year’s estimate. The unfunded liability – what it would cost to provide health and dental benefits that had been earned as of June 30, 2016 – would be about $1.45 billion more but for slower-than-expected growth in health care claims and lower costs, the report said. (Miller, 1/25)

The former CEO of a Richmond-based blood-testing company claims the accusations that she oversaw an illegal kickback scheme are “an apparent hindsight effort to rewrite the history of HDL” in her first public explanation after the company’s downfall. Tonya Mallory founded Health Diagnostic Laboratory in 2008 and built it into one of Richmond’s fastest-growing companies — with nearly 900 employees and profits topping $100 million a year — before a federal investigation over alleged kickbacks to doctors who used the company’s services forced it into bankruptcy in June 2015. (Demeria, 1/25)

Students at Sacramento State returned to school after winter break this week to find drinking fountains, bottle-filling stations and sinks in six classroom buildings and two dormitories shut down after elevated lead levels were discovered in the water. The high lead levels were found by students and professors working on a research project during their tests of 449 sinks and fountains on the campus over a three-day period earlier this month. The testing revealed 27 water sources had lead levels above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s allowable limit of 15 parts per billion, according to California State University, Sacramento, officials. (Lambert and Chavez, 1/25)

The Dayton administration has launched a campaign to save and rebuild Minnesota's only state-operated psychiatric hospital for children and teens, arguing that private-sector facilities don't furnish the sustained, intensive care that some young patients require. The Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health Services (CABHS) facility in Willmar, which has struggled to stay afloat amid budget cuts and a shortage of professional staff, would be resurrected under an $8 million plan in Gov. Mark Dayton's bonding proposal. (Serres, 1/25)

In the seven months since California’s aid-in-dying law took effect, Dr. Lonny Shavelson has helped nearly two dozen terminally ill people end their lives with lethal drugs —  but only, he says, because too few others would. Shavelson, director of a Berkeley, Calif. consulting clinic, said he has heard from more than 200 patients, including dozens who were stunned to learn that local health care providers refused to participate in the state’s End of Life Options Act. (Aleccia, 1/26)

Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences is partnering with HCA Midwest Health to create additional clinical training for about 100 medical students. The training will be made available to third-year medical students, and the collaboration between the two training entities will be led by Bruce Williams, a KCU alumnus and a family physician with HCA Midwest. (Williams, 1/25)

A Houston physician was convicted in federal court Wednesday for his role in a $13 million fraudulent Medicare billing scheme involving hundreds of patients-for-hire. Eight co-defendants - including the clinic director - had previously admitted to helping bill for unnecessary tests for the patients who were recruited and delivered to the clinic by marketers, according to participants' sworn testimony. (Banks, 1/25)

Two Slidell residents who own psychological services companies have been convicted in a $25 million scheme to defraud Medicare by charging for nursing home services that were unnecessary or never performed. Rodney Hesson, 47, and Gertrude Parker, 63, were each convicted Tuesday (Jan. 24) of health-care fraud and conspiracy. The convictions capped a seven-day trial in U.S. District Court before Judge Carl Barbier, who has set a sentencing hearing May 4. The jury verdict included a judgment of $8.9 million as well as forfeiture of Hesson's home and at least $525,629 in seized currency, prosecutors said. (Chatelain, 1/25)

Prosecutors have accused a one-time Arizona resident of being the ringleader of an elaborate health-care fraud that netted him and eight others nearly $2 million in bogus health-insurance claims. Nicholas Scaffidi, 35, was charged earlier this month with fraud, money laundering and multiple counts of theft in connection with a scheme that prosecutors say began September 2014 during the first year of the Affordable Care Act marketplace. (Alltucker, 1/25)

Therapists thought Naika Venant might flirt, or flaunt herself or misbehave on Facebook, so child welfare administrators forbade her from using the platform. They never thought she would kill herself there. A survivor of physical and sexual abuse, Naika had bounced in and out of state care since 2009. Since April alone, her mother’s attorney says, the girl had hopscotched among 10 different homes and shelters, including a hotel and a child welfare office building. Her sojourn ended in the bathroom of a Miami Gardens foster home, where she hanged herself outside a shower stall — while live-streaming the event on Facebook. She was 14. (Teproff and Marbin Miller, 1/25)

Students from Gunn High School’s Investigative Medicine Club are again petitioning Palo Alto city officials to deal with toxins seeping from plumes into buildings. Brent Han asked the City Council on Monday to adopt a citywide vapor intrusion policy that requires testing when buildings are constructed or situated over toxic plumes. (Lee, 1/25)