Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
State Highlights: Decision On Whether To Block Texas' Abortion Ban Expected This Week; Most Of Ohio's Death Row Inmates Have Intellectual Impairments
A federal judge will decide by Friday whether to temporarily block the state鈥檚 ban on a common second-trimester abortion procedure. Supporters argue the measure will prevent 鈥渄ismemberment鈥 of living fetuses, but critics contend it will erode women鈥檚 access to abortions. After a hearing Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Lee Yeakel of Austin said he would release a written order later in the week, before Senate Bill 8 is set to take effect Friday. (Morris, 8/29)
Most of the 26 men scheduled for execution in Ohio over three years have intellectual impairments, mental illness and childhood abuse and should not be put to death, a study by Harvard Law School鈥檚 Fair Punishment Project concludes. A report released Wednesday looked at all 26 cases of convicted killers set to be executed in Ohio through 2020, beginning with Gary Otte on Sept. 13. It said Ohio is 鈥減oised to violate constitutional limits鈥 by executing impaired inmates. (Johnson, 8/29)
In a measurement by the U.S. News & World Report, multiple areas of care at Adventist Health Glendale were recently recognized as being among the best in the region and state. The media company released its 鈥淏est Hospitals鈥 list for 2017-18 last week and ranked Adventist Health Glendale at No. 16 in the Los Angeles metro area and No. 28 in California. (Landa, 8/29)
A federal auditor said Tuesday that聽Fox Rehabilitation, based in Cherry Hill, received at least $29.9 million from Medicare for services that did not meet Medicare requirements. The services were provided to聽15,287 Medicare beneficiaries in New Jersey between July 2013 and June 2015. The Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that 85 of 100 claims in its sample contained services that were not medically necessary. Overall, privately owned Fox submitted 400,221 claims during the audit period, with $39.7 million in total reimbursement. (Brubaker, 8/29)
The number of prison inmates testing positive for drugs in New Hampshire is going down. Around this time last year, 27 percent of drug tests came back positive. New data from the Department of Corrections says now, that's down to 11 percent. (Sutherland, 8/28)
The family of a woman who died less than a week after giving birth at Abbott Northwestern Hospital has won a judgment exceeding $20 million in what the plaintiff's attorneys are calling the largest wrongful-death medical malpractice verdict in Minnesota history. The six-person jury's unanimous verdict came Monday afternoon in Hennepin County District Court on behalf of the husband and other relatives of Nicole Bermingham, who died on Aug. 26, 2013. (Walsh, 8/29)
Some Florida Autism Centers provide schooling as well as therapy. The new Tampa center, which opened in May, specializes in one-on-one therapy based on the principles of applied behavioral analysis 鈥 described as a systematic approach for influencing behavior by identifying environmental variables. (Morgan, 8/29)
