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Three private, nonprofit health systems have challenged the “equity in state funding” provided to the Virginia Commonwealth University and University of Virginia health systems to compensate them for treating indigent patients and teaching graduate medical students. In a presentation to state health and budget officials this fall, the Sentara, INOVA and Carilion health systems said they operate private teaching hospitals and Level 1 trauma centers in Norfolk, Fairfax County and Roanoke that receive less than one-eighth of the public compensation given to VCU and U.Va. for indigent care and medical education — $29.2 million compared with $243.9 million for the public hospitals in the last fiscal year. (Martz, 12/20)

Over the next 15 years, the number of people 60 or older in Colorado is expected to more than double, boosting the need for long-term care and services that enable older adults to live independently in their homes. Keeping needy senior citizens in their homes will require an expansion of services like transportation, meals-on-wheels, counseling and nutrition education, according to the Colorado Department of Human Services. To meet that need, the agency is asking for an additional $4 million next year, which would raise state funding for Area Agencies on Aging to $21.3 million. (McGhee, 12/22)

North Texas leaders have boasted for years about the unique way they provide mental health care to the poor. They say their partially privatized system called NorthSTAR uses less money to treat more people than in any other part of the state. More important, they say no one in need of care ever goes on a waiting list. But critics have argued that the system offers less comprehensive care and causes the region to lose out on state dollars. And now, an effort to break it up seems to be gaining steam. (Watkins, 12/20)

At her south Charlotte home one night in September, Beth Straeten got her kids to bed and grabbed her iPhone to download a new app. Within minutes, she was talking face-to-face with a physician assistant. As Straeten described the poison ivy rash on her arms, PA Dimple Joshi sat across town at Carolinas Medical Center-Pineville, in front of two computer monitors. On one, Joshi could see Straeten and on the other she could read Straeten’s medical record. Their conversation lasted for about 10 minutes, and Straeten came away with a prescription to help stop the itching, called in to her local drugstore. This “Virtual Visit” cost Straeten $49 but allowed her to avoid a trip to the doctor’s office or a long wait in an emergency room. It’s one of the latest conveniences emerging from Charlotte-area hospital systems and doctors groups as they embrace the world of electronic health records. (Garloch, 12/19)

The District’s most frequent 911 caller, Martha Rigsby, was due in court to again discuss her habit of excessively dialing the city’s emergency line. She arrived straight from Sibley Memorial Hospital, dressed in a red winter coat and borrowed baggy pants, with a social worker in tow. Also there was her close friend Demetric Pearson, who sat with Rigsby in the hallway until her case was called. The hearing was supposed to be a routine check to see whether Rigsby had reduced her 911 calls. But it quickly became an exercise in judicial matchmaking. (Brittain, 12/20)

At least 786 children died of abuse or neglect in the U.S. in a six-year span in plain view of child protection authorities — many of them beaten, starved or left alone to drown while agencies had good reason to know they were in danger, The Associated Press has found. To determine that number, the AP canvassed the 50 states, the District of Columbia and branches of the military — circumventing a system that does a terrible job of accounting for child deaths. Many states struggled to provide numbers. Secrecy often prevailed. (Mohr and Burke, 12/22)

A decision by the Paris City Council in March to ban smoking in public places, including restaurants, angered Brent McKee. A restaurant owner, McKee was thinking about the customers who enjoyed a cigarette or two while nursing their morning coffee. Now, McKee reluctantly acknowledges a change of heart. “I’m glad it happened, I guess,” he said last week. “Everybody says it smells so much better. It hurts the business in the morning time with the coffee and the smokers, but the rest of the day, everybody who wouldn’t come in here will come in here now.” Next year, Texas lawmakers will again consider a statewide ban on smoking in public places. It will be the fifth legislative session in a row in which such a measure has been proposed. More than 100 Texas cities — encompassing nearly half of the state population — have moved on their own, enacting some sort of ban on smoking in public places in an effort to reduce secondhand smoke exposure, according to state records. (Batheja, 12/19)