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Help is on the way for Texans who get a nasty surprise after a hospital visit — huge bills, even though the hospital is in their health insurer’s provider network. A law that takes effect Tuesday will allow more patients to enlist help from the Texas Department of Insurance to negotiate lower bills from hospital-based doctors who are not “in network.” (Garrett, 8/27)

A judge halted a government lawsuit Thursday against five of the world's largest narcotics manufacturers in spite of an impassioned plea by Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas that the companies pay for the damages of a prescription drug epidemic. The ruling came in a suit filed last year by Orange and Santa Clara counties accusing the companies of fraudulently marketing addictive painkillers to undermine the effect of warning labels required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The counties say that the efforts boosted sales of the dangerous drugs at the expense of public health. The companies say that the claims are unfounded. (Girion, 8/27)

We're just hours away from knowing if People Incorporated, a community mental health provider, is allowed to move one of its three short-term crisis centers from the Midway area of St. Paul to a vacant convent on the the east side. It would help the organization serve more people. But there are questions — zoning questions, parking questions, safety questions. Nimby questions. The St. Paul City Council will take it up tonight (Wednesday, Aug. 26). Right now it looks about 50-50. People Incorporated, which operates more than 60 programs in seven counties, sure would like to make the move. (Wahlberg, 8/26)

Nearly $10 million in charitable donations by California taxpayers sat unspent in government accounts at the end of last year, The Associated Press has found, and the Senate Governance and Finance Committee chairman said Thursday that he wants a review of state accounts and will hold a hearing to find out why the money hasn’t been spent. ... The money was donated by Californians when they filed their tax returns and was supposed to go for causes such as cancer research and to help sea otters. ... Health agencies never used funding for a colorectal cancer prevention program, promoted by Erin Stennis, a Culver City woman who lost her husband to colon cancer in 2003. In 2005, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation sponsored by Stennis’ family foundation creating a tax checkoff fund that raised $237,000 for colorectal cancer screenings, with a focus on African-Americans who are disproportionately killed by the disease. Not a single dime has been spent on cancer prevention. (Nirappil, 8/27)

The Opera House Hotel had to turn off its air-conditioning one hot day this month so that a cleaning crew could scrub away the Legionella bacteria lurking in the cooling tower on its roof. ... Not much else has changed at the hotel at the center of the worst outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in the city’s history. Business has been, if anything, a little brisker. Occupancy rates have hovered between 90 and 95 percent for the past two months, slightly higher than a year ago, the management said. An online reservation system showed the hotel was completely booked for this Saturday, and for four nights in September. (Hu, 8/27)

For more than 35 years, Mahon examined patients day in and day out at his small clinic, next to Mendocino Coast District Hospital, the only hospital for miles. He handled everything from regular checkups to broken bones to very sick kids who might need a spinal taps or IV treatment. He got to know families closely. Going anywhere in town almost certainly involved bumping into a former patient. Now [Dr. Bill] Mahon is mostly retired. (Romero, 8/27)

A new analysis has found that Massachusetts' 62 hospitals had combined earnings of $1.2 billion last year and all but eight finished the year in the black. The report released Wednesday was conducted by the state's Center for Health Information and Analysis. Eight hospitals posted losses in 2014, down from 11 the previous year. The center's executive director says the numbers show that the state's hospitals are adopating to the new realities of the health care system that include fewer patient admissions, more competition and pressure to be more efficient. (8/27)

Stanley Smith has spent nearly four decades helping troubled young people earn GEDs and get jobs, but he learned something new this week that he thinks will help him do his job even better. Smith, an employment advocate with the Mayor's Office of Employment Development, was among 150 Baltimore city employees who sat through training on how to recognize, understand and respond to people who have experienced some form of trauma. As the city faces a surge of violent crime, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has made it a priority to get city workers at all levels to better understand the residents they serve and why they may be behaving the way they are. (McDaniels, 8/27)

A team of UNC-Chapel Hill researchers has found Medicare patients in rural areas are less likely to receive adequate follow-up care after leaving the hospital than patients in urban areas. As a result, they may well be at greater risk of winding up back in the hospital or the emergency room soon after discharge. Matthew Toth, now a research public health analyst at RTI International, was lead author of the study, conducted while he was earning a doctorate in health policy and management at UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health and serving as a research assistant with the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services’ N.C. Rural Health Research Program. (Sisk, 8/27)