There's a good reflection piece posted (free) today on-line at JAMA: “The Patient” by Katie Thure. It starts:Mrs T was a 58-year-old female admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) for respiratory distress secondary to pneumonia. On her 10th day of hospitalization, she developed septic shock. Despite escalations in care, it became clear Mrs T would not survive. After a goals-of-care ..read more

Here is The Commonwealth Fund's introduction to the new report (released today):Part of the Fund’s ongoing series examining state health system performance, Advancing Racial Equity in U.S. Health Care: The Commonwealth Fund 2024 State Health Disparities Report evaluates states on 25 measures of health care access, quality, service use, and health outcomes for Black, white, Hispanic, American ..read more

From the Texas Freedom Network's Quote of the Day:“It’s shameful that law-enforcement officials are choosing to persecute teens trying to live their lives, just to score points with far-right activists. . . ."Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden of Oregon said, referring to the fact that four attorneys general in conservative states — including Ken Paxton — have abused their authority to ..read more

In a letter sent out today, the Office of Civil Rights informed teaching hospitals and medical schools that it has prepared a clarification of HHS's Conditions of Participation. Here's the bottom line:Recent articles in both the mainstream media as well as medical and scientific literature have brought public attention to the traditional practice of allowing practitioners or supervised ..read more

March 23 marked the 14th anniversary of the enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, a/k/a "ACA" and "Obamacare"). and the 10th anniversary of its full implementation (minus occasional trimming by the Congress and the Supreme Court). As Paul Krugman observed today in his subscribers-only newsletter, the program has been a considerable success, defying the predictions ..read more

It took a strongly worded "suggestion" from the Texas Supreme Court (in its "know-nothing" opinion in the Kate Cox case [HealthLawBlog 12/12/23], but the TMB has finally published a proposed rule that provides some detail about the medical exceptions to the state's ban on abortions.Notice and Statement of TMB ChairProposed Rule AmendmentOfficial Form for Submission of Public Comments&nbsp ..read more

Defendant Andrew Chmiel got a one-way ticket to federal prison for 9 years following his conviction for Medicare fraud, courtesy of the U.S. Attorney's office in the District of South Carolina. He was also ordered to pay $98,935,533.00 in restitution.Touting this as one of the biggest Medicare fraud cases ever, the press release on this case described the essentials of the scheme (emphasis ..read more

The Chevron doctrine says that federal courts will defer to agency interpretations of federal statutes as long as the statute in question is either silent or ambiguous on the subject in question and as long as the agency interpretation is "reasonable." Note first the weasel words in my description of the Chevron doctrine:ambiguous: When is a statute ambiguous? Language is ..read more

Once upon a time, the way health insurance worked was this: Patients with insurance were seen by their doctors, received prescriptions for medications, and got the surgeries and other procedures their doctors believed were justified. Under these "indemnity plans," after the fact, invoices were submitted to health insurance companies, and -- by and large -- the invoices were paid. Not necessarily ..read more

On Feb. 12, Change Healthcare experienced a ransomware attack. Most of us had not heard of Change Healthcare before then, but the effect of the cyberattack was felt widely around the country. Associated Press states that "Change Healthcare provides technology used to submit and process insurance claims — and handles about 14 billion transactions a year."As reported by Becker's CFO Report& ..read more