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Mayo Clinic has teamed up with a health technology company to launch a new digital service focused on reducing the high cost of testing and care for COVID-19, sexually transmitted diseases and other common medical conditions. Mayo Clinic is partnering with Los Angeles-based Safe Health Group on the venture to improve access to efficient, affordable treatment for common medical conditions, the health system announced in conjunction with the start of the HLTH 2020 virtual conference Monday. The venture will focus on testing for STDs and common ailments but will initially target COVID-19 through symptom tracking and testing by linking consumers, clinicians and test distribution into one digital solution, called HealthCheck. (Landi, 10/12)

The Trump administration says requirements for how hospitals report COVID-19 data are critical to keeping them prepared for potential surges this winter, but health experts warn the rules can also be overly burdensome, and that new consequences for failing to comply could lead to critical losses in funding that may put communities at risk. (Santhanam, 10/12)

Thanks to a $200 million donation, the new hospital being built by Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta will be named the Arthur M. Blank Hospital. The naming gift for the $1.5 billion Brookhaven project came from the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation. Blank, a co-founder of Home Depot, is the owner of the Atlanta Falcons. (Miller, 10/12)

Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio is giving $50 million to New York-Presbyterian Hospital to fund a center dedicated to health equity and justice, at a time when the Covid pandemic has underlined the stark racial disparities in the U.S. The Dalio Center for Health Justice, a research and advocacy organization, will focus on reducing differences in access to quality health care that overwhelmingly affect communities of color, New York-Presbyterian and Dalio Philanthropies said in a statement. (Pendleton, 10/13)

KHN: Black Doctors Work To Make Coronavirus Testing More Equitable

When the coronavirus arrived in Philadelphia in March, Dr. Ala Stanford hunkered down at home with her husband and kids. A pediatric surgeon with a private practice, she has staff privileges at a few suburban Philadelphia hospitals. For weeks, most of her usual procedures and patient visits were canceled. So she found herself, like a lot of people, spending the days in her pajamas, glued to the TV. And then, at the beginning of April, she started seeing media reports indicating that Black people were contracting the coronavirus and dying from COVID-19 at greater rates than other demographic groups. (Feldman, 10/13)

KHN: ‘No Mercy’ Chapter 3: Patchwork Of Urgent Care Frays After A Rural Hospital Closes

Emergency care gets complicated after a hospital closes. On a cold February evening, when Robert Findley fell and hit his head on a patch of ice, his wife, Linda, called 911. The delays that came next exposed the frayed patchwork that sometimes stands in for rural health care. After Mercy Hospital Fort Scott shut down, many locals had big opinions about what kind of health care the town needed. (Tribble, 10/12)