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The House has approved its model to overhaul North Carolina's Medicaid system, contrasting starkly with a proposal incorporated in the Senate's budget. House members voted 105-6 on Tuesday for the measure, which like the Senate's plan directs Medicaid to give a fixed amount of money to medical organizations for each patient treated. Medicaid now reimburses hospitals and doctors for every medical procedure they perform. (6/23)

One week before California unveils an enhanced prescription drug database, some health providers say the upgraded program will be incompatible with their computer systems, hobbling their access to the tool that is meant to combat drug abuse. (Mason, 6/23)

The author of an aid-in-dying bill postponed a scheduled Tuesday hearing on the measure because it lacked enough support to pass a key committee. State Sen. Lois Wolk (D-Davis) agreed to delay a vote on her bill in the Assembly Health Committee until next month. The proposal would allow terminally ill patients to end their lives with drugs prescribed by a doctor. (McGreevy, 6/23)

Gov. Robert Bentley has chosen not to sign a bill that would have allowed HIV clinic pharmacies to redistribute unused drugs, a move that patient advocates on Tuesday said was "extremely disappointing." The legislation would have allowed clinics to give government-funded prescription medication to other low income HIV patients instead of throwing expensive drugs away. (Swant, 6/24)

Supporters of the state mental hospital here made a last-ditch plea to the governor on Tuesday to sign a compromise plan that legislators passed to keep it open. Gov. Terry Branstad's administrators have been moving to close the facility and a sister hospital in Clarinda within the next few weeks. Branstad contends that the services can be provided more efficiently by private agencies or at the state's other two mental hospitals, which are in northern Iowa. Two of the three programs at the Mount Pleasant facility have been emptied, and most employees of the third program received layoff notices last week. (Leys, 6/23)

Many Georgia hospitals are reeling financially from the high costs of uncompensated care, because they are treating so many uninsured patients. But Piedmont Fayette is in a far different position. It’s in one of Georgia’s most prosperous counties. Median household income in Fayette County is almost $80,000, versus $49,000 statewide, according to Census figures. Fayette’s uninsured rate is 13 percent, compared with 21 percent statewide. (Miller, 6/24)

More than a hundred physicians, nurse practitioners, social workers and other health care providers crowded into the cafeteria space at the City of Medicine Academy magnet school in North Durham Monday night to hear about how they could do a better job integrating mental health services into their primary care practices. The providers – who are part of the Northern Piedmont Community Care network that serves Medicaid patients in Durham, Vance, Warren, Person, Franklin and Granville counties – sat at picnic and cafeteria tables eating a dinner of cheap burritos. As they ate, they were barraged by presentations on programs they could take advantage of to help patients with mental health problems do better both psychologically and physically. (Hoban, 6/24)

A former Illinois Department of Public Health aide has been sentenced to eight years in prison for her part in a kickback scheme that defrauded the state of millions of dollars. Prosecutors claim Quinshaunta R. Golden conspired with a former IDPH aide, Roxanne B. Jackson, and Chicago social services provider Leon Dingle Jr. to steer millions of dollars in state health department grants and contracts their way and, in return, get kickbacks. (6/23)

A proposal by Ohio lawmakers would do away with taxes on feminine care products. Legislation was introduced Monday that would make Ohio the sixth state to scrap the so-called pink tax on products such as tampons and pads. Rep. Greta Johnson, an Akron Democrat, said at a news conference that women spend $6 to $10 of taxable dollars every month on the products, and it's time to help them save money on the essential purchases. (6/23)

Three democratic state representatives introduced legislation Monday that would exempt feminine care products from sales tax. The exemption, which they referred to as a ‘Pink Tax,’ would apply to tampons and pads. Five other states have already passed such legislation, including Massachusetts, New Jersey and Minnesota. (Cardoza, 6/24)

Sitting in his surgical gown inside a large medical suite in Reston, Va., a Vienna man prepared for his colonoscopy by pressing record on his smartphone, to capture the instructions his doctor would give him after the procedure. But as soon as he pressed play on his way home, he was shocked out of his anesthesia-induced stupor: He found that he had recorded the entire examination and that the surgical team had mocked and insulted him as soon as he drifted off to sleep. In addition to their vicious commentary, the doctors discussed avoiding the man after the colonoscopy, instructing an assistant to lie to him, and then placed a false diagnosis on his chart. (Jackman, 6/23)

Three-quarter homes, so described because they are seen as being between regulated halfway houses and actual homes, often cram four to eight people in a room and sometimes have blocked exits and squalid conditions. The article focused on one unscrupulous operator, Yury Baumblit, accused of taking illicit payments on Medicaid fees for drug treatment while forcing people to sleep in bunk beds squeezed into tiny rooms. (Barker, 6/24)