UNC Health’s Triangle-area hospitals will implement temporary visitor restrictions on Monday, Jan. 5.
The resetrictions include measures as:
Visitors 11 years old and younger will be prohibited from all hospital inpatient areas and waiting areas.
Visitors older than 11 with respiratory symptoms will be prohibited from inpatient areas and waiting areas.
All employees at designated inpatient locations will be required to wear a mask while providing care. Masks are not required, but strongly encouraged, for patients and visitors.
Affected facilities include UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill and Hillsborough, UNC Health Rex in Raleigh and Holly Springs, UNC Health Chatham in Siler City, and UNC Health Johnston in Clayton and Smithfield.
The restrictions have been put in place in recent years during the cold weather months when respiratory illnesses increase.
The move comes as the state saw a significant jump in emergency room admissions from flu-like illnesses last week. Approximately 2,000 people had flu-like symptoms, according to data from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. A total of 39 people have died from the flu so far this winter in North Carolina.
Virtua Health and ChristianaCare have abandoned a planned $6 billion merger, the health systems announced Thursday.
The health systems – two of the largest in the area – signed a letter of intent in July to explore the possibility of joining forces. The plan would have merged 600 health care sites in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland into one system and would have affected about 30,000 employees. Merging would have generated an estimated $6 billion in annual revenue.
But the health systems “have mutually agreed to terminate the Letter of Intent,” they said in a statement. “After thoughtful evaluation, both organizations have determined that they can best fulfill their missions to serve their communities by continuing to operate independently.”
The health systems did not detail why they decided against merging, but their statement said they are “committed to providing high quality, compassionate care and advancing the health and well-being of the patients and communities they serve.”
Virtua Health, based in Marlton, has five hospitals in South Jersey. The health system operates two satellite emergency departments, 42 ambulatory surgery centers and 400 other sites. It has a cancer care affiliation with Penn Medicine and a pediatric partnership with Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. In 2019, Virtua took over Lourdes Health System, including its hospitals in Willingboro and Camden.
ChristianaCare is the largest health system in Delaware with four hospitals, a Level I trauma center and a freestanding emergency department.
By Carlos Gershenson | Professor of Innovation, Binghamton University, State University of New York
In the past decade, AI’s success has led to uncurbed enthusiasm and bold claims – even though users frequently experience errors that AI makes. An AI-powered digital assistant can misunderstand someone’s speech in embarrassing ways, a chatbot could hallucinate facts, or, as I experienced, an AI-based navigation tool might even guide drivers through a corn field – all without registering the errors.
How exactly such prescribing would work if this or similar legislation passes remains to be seen. But it raises the stakes for how many errors AI developers can allow their tools to make and what the consequences would be if those tools led to negative outcomes – even patient deaths.
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For AI in particular, errors might be an inescapable consequence of how the systems work. My lab’s research suggests that particular properties of the data used to train AI models play a role. This is unlikely to change, regardless of how much time, effort and funding researchers direct at improving AI models.
Nobody – And Nothing, Not Even AI – Is Perfect
As Alan Turing, considered the father of computer science, once said: “If a machine is expected to be infallible, it cannot also be intelligent.” This is because learning is an essential part of intelligence, and people usually learn from mistakes. I see this tug-of-war between intelligence and infallibility at play in my research.
In a study published in July 2025, my colleagues and I showed that perfectly organizing certain datasets into clear categories may be impossible. In other words, there may be a minimum amount of errors that a given dataset produces, simply because of the fact that elements of many categories overlap. For some datasets – the core underpinning of many AI systems – AI will not perform better than chance.
For example, a model trained on a dataset of millions of dogs that logs only their age, weight and height will probably distinguish Chihuahuas from Great Danes with perfect accuracy. But it may make mistakes in telling apart an Alaskan malamute and a Doberman pinscher, since different individuals of different species might fall within the same age, weight and height ranges.
This categorizing is called classifiability, and my students and I started studying it in 2021. Using data from more than half a million students who attended the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México between 2008 and 2020, we wanted to solve a seemingly simple problem. Could we use an AI algorithm to predict which students would finish their university degrees on time – that is, within three, four or five years of starting their studies, depending on the major?
We tested several popular algorithms that are used for classification in AI and also developed our own. No algorithm was perfect; the best ones − even one we developed specifically for this task − achieved an accuracy rate of about 80%, meaning that at least 1 in 5 students were misclassified. We realized that many students were identical in terms of grades, age, gender, socioeconomic status and other features – yet some would finish on time, and some would not. Under these circumstances, no algorithm would be able to make perfect predictions.
You might think that more data would improve predictability, but this usually comes with diminishing returns. This means that, for example, for each increase in accuracy of 1%, you might need 100 times the data. Thus, we would never have enough students to significantly improve our model’s performance.
Additionally, many unpredictable turns in lives of students and their families – unemployment, death, pregnancy – might occur after their first year at university, likely affecting whether they finish on time. So even with an infinite number of students, our predictions would still give errors.
The Limits of Prediction
Thus, studying elements of the system in isolation would probably yield misleading insights about them – as well as about the system as a whole.
Take, for example, a car traveling in a city. Knowing the speed at which it drives, it’s theoretically possible to predict where it will end up at a particular time. But in real traffic, its speed will depend on interactions with other vehicles on the road. Since the details of these interactions emerge in the moment and cannot be known in advance, precisely predicting what happens to the the car is possible only a few minutes into the future.
Not With My Health
These same principles apply to prescribing medications. Different conditions and diseases can have the same symptoms, and people with the same condition or disease may exhibit different symptoms. For example, fever can be caused by a respiratory illness or a digestive one. And a cold might cause cough, but not always.
This means that health care datasets have significant overlaps that would prevent AI from being error-free.
Certainly, humans also make errors. But when AI misdiagnoses a patient, as it surely will, the situation falls into a legal limbo. It’s not clear who or what would be responsible if a patient were hurt. Pharmaceutical companies? Software developers? Insurance agencies? Pharmacies?
In many contexts, neither humans nor machines are the best option for a given task. “Centaurs,” or “hybrid intelligence” – that is, a combination of humans and machines – tend to be better than each on their own. A doctor could certainly use AI to decide potential drugs to use for different patients, depending on their medical history, physiological details and genetic makeup. Researchers are already exploring this approach in precision medicine.
But common sense and the precautionary principle suggest that it is too early for AI to prescribe drugs without human oversight. And the fact that mistakes may be baked into the technology could mean that where human health is at stake, human supervision will always be necessary.
Registered nurses at Keck Hospital of USC and USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center in Lincoln Heights began walking the picket line at 7 a.m. outside the Keck facility at 1500 San Pablo St. About 1,800 nurses are set to take part in the strike, which will last for 24 hours, according to the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United.
“We are the frontline nurses of Keck Medicine of USC, caring for patients from across Los Angeles and beyond — your friends, your family, your neighbors, your loved ones,” Jeong-A Cha, a Keck USC registered nurse, said in a statement.
“Every day and every night, we give our hearts, our skill, and our strength to heal our community,” Cha said. “But today, we are being asked to jeopardize the very lives we swore to protect. Keck USC nurses are working under unsafe staffing conditions that violate the most basic standards of patient care.”
Keck Medicine officials said its facilities “will remain open and fully staffed with doctors, nurses and all other clinical professionals” during the strike, “as we continue our commitment to exceptional patient care and safety.”
“We pride ourselves in consistently upholding state-required nurse staffing ratios,” Keck officials said in a statement. “Importantly, our current contract proposal includes an increase in resource staff so nurses can more properly rest and recharge during their shifts.
“We remain committed to negotiating in good faith and look forward to collaborative discussions with CNA to reach agreements that are fair, provide competitive pay and benefits, and reflect our dedication and support of our staff.”
The union contends that a lack of resources at Keck and Norris facilities resulted in more than 10,000 missed meal breaks and 4,000 missed rest breaks in 2024, with 4,631 missed meal breaks as of July of this year, and 2,210 missed rest breaks.
“The break relief situation is currently very dire, with nurses working up to 10 hours without a break to use the restroom or drink water,” USC Keck registered nurse Rudy Cuellar said in a statement released by the union. “Adequate staffing of resource nurses would correct this problem, but management has been unwilling to provide the adequate staffing of resource nurses that would correct this problem. As a result, they are compromising our ability to provide excellent patient care.”
USC Keck and Norris nurses have been in labor talks with USC since May, according to the union. The nurses held an informational picket on July 24 and voted to authorize a strike on Aug. 22.
Pennsylvania lawmakers want to make sure humans are still involved in health care decisions that rely on artificial intelligence.
Bipartisan legislation introduced this month in the House of Representatives would require health care providers and insurers to be transparent about how they use artificial intelligence and ensure that humans review all assessments made by AI. Providers and insurers also would be mandated to provide evidence that their uses of AI minimize bias and discrimination prohibited by law.
AI has a range of applications in health care — from AI chatbots that offer simple care or answer questions about insurance coverage to algorithms that interpret medical images to the filing of visitation notes into patient files.
But because AI technologies are trained on existing medical records and treatment data, they can perpetuate the biases within them. For instance, an AI program used by several health systems prioritized healthier white patients over sicker Black patients to receive additional care management, Harvard Medical School notes. Rather than training the program on the patients’ care needs, it was trained on cost data.
A Rutgers University study also found that AI algorithms can perpetuate false assumptions because they rely on data that can lead to generalizations about people of color. Algorithms struggle to account for social determinants of health, like access to transportation, healthy food costs and work schedules. This may make it harder for patients to follow treatment plans that require frequent doctors visits, exercise and other measures.
Rep. Tarik Khan, a nurse practitioner who co-sponsored the bill, said the idea isn’t to remove AI from health care, but to put some guardrails in place.
“Something as rich and as dynamic as AI, we have to make sure we’re very deliberate, especially when we’re getting into science, we have to make sure that the computer doesn’t take over,” said Khan, a Democrat from Philadelphia. “We have to make sure that people are weighing in, clinicians are making medical decisions, not the computer.”
But Khan said a particular concern is insurers’ use of AI in prior authorization — when patients must receive approval from their insurers before undergoing medical procedures. A report from the American Medical Association noted that, in some cases, AI denied prior authorizations at a rate 16 times higher than typical. A 2024 AMA found that 61% of doctors worried that AI use is increasing prior-authorization denials.
For patients, a denial can mean going into medical debt to get the treatment or deciding not to have it, which Khan said can be life-threatening. Another AMA survey found that 93% of doctors said prior-authorization issues have delayed what they considered to be necessary care, and 29% said those delays caused a serious adverse event resulting in hospitalization, permanent injury or death.
“The concern is that insurance companies are having AI do these denials without a human ever reviewing the case and weighing in,” Khan said. “There is a lack of transparency of when it’s happening, how often it’s happening, who’s using it, who’s not using it, and we think that the public has a right to know, especially with something as sensitive as health care, which is very personal for people.”
Khan said AI can be useful in health care, particularly in analyzing data that allows providers to draw medical conclusions. But he said AI needs human review and patients need to be aware that it is being used, even if it’s just used by insurers to craft letters to patients. To Kahn, it’s important that final decisions are made by someone with medical training, which AI cannot offer.
Khan said the bill’s regulations will impact the current uses of AI, but he also wants them in place to protect patients as the technology continues to evolve.
Pennsylvania is one of many states considering legislation that regulates AI. States including Arizona, Maryland and Texas have blocked AI from being the sole decision-maker in prior authorizations. Other states have said AI can’t present itself as a health care provider or added guidance for AI chat bots in mental health treatment.
“The technology is evolving so rapidly that we have to make sure that we’re thinking of or being on top of scenarios that are changing,” Khan said. “We have to make sure that there are appropriate guardrails.”
The Pennsylvania bill was introduced by a bipartisan group of state representatives, including Joe Hogan (R-Bucks County) and Greg Scott (D-Montgomery County). The legislation has been referred to the House Communications and Technology Committee, where is will get further review.
According to an annual list from U.S. News and World Report, Maryland, Virginia and D.C. are home to top hospitals that specialize in pediatric care.
You hope your child never needs specialized medical care, but if they do, the D.C. region seems to be a good place to be.
According to an annual list from U.S. News and World Report, Maryland, Virginia and D.C. are home to top hospitals that specialize in pediatric care. Leading the pack is Children’s National Hospital in D.C.
“Children’s National Hospital — it ranked among the best in the country for all 11 specialties that we looked at,” said Ben Harder, chief of health care analytics at U.S. News and World Report.
In the 2025 Best Children’s Hospitals rankings, Children’s National shared the honor roll with nine other top hospitals across the country. Among them were Boston Children’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Hospitals were ranked based on their ability to address a wide range of pediatric specialties. These include pediatric cancer, neonatology, cardiology, orthopedics, behavioral health and more.
Researchers considered how well hospitals treat medically complex children, how many patients recover without complications and how closely hospitals follow best practices.
“Some hospitals are really good at adhering to best practices … from every nurse washing their hands before they touch a patient to making sure every patient gets the right medication at the right time,” Harder said.
Harder said Children’s National stood out for its outstanding patient outcomes, strict adherence to best practices and robust clinical resources.
While Children’s National earned the highest marks, the D.C. region is also home to several other highly ranked children’s hospitals.
In Maryland, Harder highlighted Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore. In Virginia, he pointed to the University of Virginia Children’s Hospital in Charlottesville, the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU, and Inova L.J. Murphy Children’s Hospital in Falls Church.
Harder said the fact that the Greater Washington and Baltimore region has five nationally ranked hospitals is something to be proud of.
“For families, it’s reassuring that there are a lot of good options if they do have a child who has a complex medical need,” he said.
The rankings also break down hospitals by region and specialty. Harder said the goal is to help parents choose the best hospital for their child’s specific condition.
“We want to make sure that the data we have worked so hard to obtain and analyze is available and useful to families who depend on it,” he said.
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Almost one-third of the budget cuts and sweeps of unused money that Gov. Jared Polis used to close a $249 million budget hole will come from Medicaid, and providers are trying to figure out how much disruption that will cause for them and their patients.
About $79.2 million of the $252 million in cuts came from the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, which runs Medicaid in the state. The list includes a mix of reductions in the rates paid to people who provide care, unused funds swept from specific programs and plans to review some care types more strictly before paying.
The largest cut, worth roughly $38.3 million, would roll back most of a 1.6% increase that most providers expected to get this year. Since providers received slightly higher rates in the first months of the fiscal year, it will work out to about a 0.4% increase, which is in line with recent years, the department said.
Denver Health estimated the rollback would cost the city’s safety-net hospital about $5 million. The health system isn’t planning any layoffs or service reductions, but could cut back on nonessential maintenance and technology updates, CEO Donna Lynne said. As it was, the increase only partially offset growth in costs in recent years, she said.
“We were already trying to absorb the difference between medical inflation and the 1.6%,” she said. The American Hospital Association estimated hospital costs rose about 5.1% in 2024.
The Colorado Hospital Association said its members were “disappointed” with the rollback, especially since they expect to lose Medicaid funding under provisions of H.R. 1 in 2027 and beyond. An unknown number of patients will lose Medicaid coverage due to new work requirements, and states won’t be able to draw down as much federal funding for hospitals because of limits on provider taxes.
“We recognize the tough choices required in this budget process, but reductions to provider rates — particularly alongside other health care cuts stemming from H.R. 1 — add to the challenges ahead,” the association said in a statement. “CHA and our members remain committed to working with the governor and legislators to identify solutions that protect health care funding and sustain access to care across Colorado.”
Dentists also will receive less for treating Medicaid patients than they anticipated, with about $2.5 million in reductions to planned increases. The Colorado Dental Association said it was waiting for details about which services would take cuts, and how deep they would go.
Other Medicaid cuts include:
$7 million from reviewing applied behavior analysis claims for improper billing. The therapy attempts to teach daily living skills to people with severe autism.
$6.1 million from requiring prior authorization for more than 24 psychotherapy visits in one year
$5.6 million that Colorado was going to spend to keep children covered by Medicaid until age 3. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services revoked permission for the state to do that.
$4.4 million from a fund to raise pay in nursing homes above $15 per hour. The state’s minimum wage will be over $15 next year, making the fund largely irrelevant.
$3 million from reducing the “community connector” benefit to bring kids with disabilities into integrated settings
$3 million from reducing incentives for behavioral health care improvements
$2.7 million from benchmarking the state’s rate for applied behavior analysis for autism to 95% of the rate in comparable states
$1.7 million from requiring prior authorization to administer 17 or more drug tests to the same person in one year
$1.5 million from starting payments to small, rural and pediatric providers in January 2026 instead of July 2025
$1.5 million from reducing the rate paid to family caregivers for people with disabilities
$750,000 from reducing incentives to coordinate primary care
$500,000 in unused funding appropriated for family planning services to undocumented people
$500,000 from training for providers about screening patients for substance misuse and referring them to treatment
$131,000 in funding to advertise Cover All Coloradans, which offers Medicaid-like coverage to undocumented people
A barrage of airstrikes killed at least 32 people across Gaza City as Israel ramps up its offensive there and urges Palestinians to evacuate, medical staff reported Saturday.The dead included 12 children, according to the morgue in Shifa Hospital, where the bodies were brought.In recent days, Israel has intensified strikes across Gaza City, destroying multiple high-rise buildings and accusing Hamas of putting surveillance equipment in them.On Saturday, the army said it struck another high-rise used by Hamas in the area of Gaza City. It has ordered residents to leave as part of an offensive aimed at taking over the largest Palestinian city, which it says is Hamas’ last stronghold. Hundreds of thousands of people remain there, struggling under conditions of famine.One of the strikes overnight and into early morning Saturday hit a house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, killing a family of 10, including a mother and her three children, said health officials. The Palestinian Football Association said a player for the Al-Helal Sporting Club, Mohammed Ramez Sultan, was killed in the strikes, along with 14 members of his family. Images showed the strikes hitting followed by plumes of smoke.Israel’s army did not immediately respond to questions about the strikes.Hostages’ relatives rally in IsraelMeanwhile, relatives of Israeli hostages held by Hamas rallied in Tel Aviv on Saturday to demand a deal to release their loved ones and criticized what they said was a counterproductive approach by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in securing a resolution.Einav Zangauker, the mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, described Israel’s attempted assassination of Hamas leaders in Qatar this week as a “spectacular failure.”“President Trump said yesterday that every time there is progress in the negotiations, Netanyahu bombs someone. But it wasn’t Hamas leaders he tried to bomb — it was our chance, as families, to bring our loved ones home,” Zangauker said.Some Palestinians are leaving Gaza City, but many are stuckIn the wake of escalating hostilities and calls to evacuate the city, the number of people leaving has spiked in recent weeks, according to aid workers. However, many families remain stuck due to the cost of finding transportation and housing, while others have been displaced too many times and do not want to move again, not trusting that anywhere in the enclave is safe.In a message on social media Saturday, Israel’s army told the remaining Palestinians in Gaza City to leave “immediately” and move south to what it’s calling a humanitarian zone. Army spokesman Avichay Adraee said that more than a quarter of a million people had left Gaza City — from an estimated 1 million who live in the area of north Gaza around the city.The United Nations, however, put the number of people who have left at around 100,000 between mid-August and mid-September. The U.N. and aid groups have warned that displacing hundreds of thousands of people will exacerbate the dire humanitarian crisis. Sites in southern Gaza where Israel is telling people to go are overcrowded, according to the U.N., and it can cost money to move, which many people do not have.An initiative headed by the U.N. to bring temporary shelters into Gaza said more than 86,000 tents and other supplies were still awaiting clearance to enter Gaza as of last week.Gaza’s Health Ministry said Saturday that seven people, including children, died from malnutrition-related causes over the past 24 hours, raising the toll to 420, including 145 children, since the war began.The bombardment Friday night across Gaza City came days after Israel launched a strike targeting Hamas leaders in Qatar, intensifying its campaign against the militant group and endangering negotiations over ending the war in Gaza.Families of the hostages still held in Gaza are pleading with Israel to halt the offensive, worried it will kill their relatives. There are 48 hostages still inside Gaza, around 20 of them believed to be alive.The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, abducting 251 people and killing some 1,200, mostly civilians. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 64,803 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were civilians or combatants. It says around half of those killed were women and children. Large parts of major cities have been completely destroyed, and around 90% of some 2 million Palestinians have been displaced.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip —
A barrage of airstrikes killed at least 32 people across Gaza City as Israel ramps up its offensive there and urges Palestinians to evacuate, medical staff reported Saturday.
The dead included 12 children, according to the morgue in Shifa Hospital, where the bodies were brought.
In recent days, Israel has intensified strikes across Gaza City, destroying multiple high-rise buildings and accusing Hamas of putting surveillance equipment in them.
On Saturday, the army said it struck another high-rise used by Hamas in the area of Gaza City. It has ordered residents to leave as part of an offensive aimed at taking over the largest Palestinian city, which it says is Hamas’ last stronghold. Hundreds of thousands of people remain there, struggling under conditions of famine.
One of the strikes overnight and into early morning Saturday hit a house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, killing a family of 10, including a mother and her three children, said health officials. The Palestinian Football Association said a player for the Al-Helal Sporting Club, Mohammed Ramez Sultan, was killed in the strikes, along with 14 members of his family. Images showed the strikes hitting followed by plumes of smoke.
Israel’s army did not immediately respond to questions about the strikes.
Hostages’ relatives rally in Israel
Meanwhile, relatives of Israeli hostages held by Hamas rallied in Tel Aviv on Saturday to demand a deal to release their loved ones and criticized what they said was a counterproductive approach by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in securing a resolution.
Einav Zangauker, the mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, described Israel’s attempted assassination of Hamas leaders in Qatar this week as a “spectacular failure.”
“President Trump said yesterday that every time there is progress in the negotiations, Netanyahu bombs someone. But it wasn’t Hamas leaders he tried to bomb — it was our chance, as families, to bring our loved ones home,” Zangauker said.
Some Palestinians are leaving Gaza City, but many are stuck
In the wake of escalating hostilities and calls to evacuate the city, the number of people leaving has spiked in recent weeks, according to aid workers. However, many families remain stuck due to the cost of finding transportation and housing, while others have been displaced too many times and do not want to move again, not trusting that anywhere in the enclave is safe.
In a message on social media Saturday, Israel’s army told the remaining Palestinians in Gaza City to leave “immediately” and move south to what it’s calling a humanitarian zone. Army spokesman Avichay Adraee said that more than a quarter of a million people had left Gaza City — from an estimated 1 million who live in the area of north Gaza around the city.
The United Nations, however, put the number of people who have left at around 100,000 between mid-August and mid-September. The U.N. and aid groups have warned that displacing hundreds of thousands of people will exacerbate the dire humanitarian crisis. Sites in southern Gaza where Israel is telling people to go are overcrowded, according to the U.N., and it can cost money to move, which many people do not have.
An initiative headed by the U.N. to bring temporary shelters into Gaza said more than 86,000 tents and other supplies were still awaiting clearance to enter Gaza as of last week.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said Saturday that seven people, including children, died from malnutrition-related causes over the past 24 hours, raising the toll to 420, including 145 children, since the war began.
The bombardment Friday night across Gaza City came days after Israel launched a strike targeting Hamas leaders in Qatar, intensifying its campaign against the militant group and endangering negotiations over ending the war in Gaza.
Families of the hostages still held in Gaza are pleading with Israel to halt the offensive, worried it will kill their relatives. There are 48 hostages still inside Gaza, around 20 of them believed to be alive.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, abducting 251 people and killing some 1,200, mostly civilians. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 64,803 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were civilians or combatants. It says around half of those killed were women and children. Large parts of major cities have been completely destroyed, and around 90% of some 2 million Palestinians have been displaced.
METHUEN — Across the Merrimack Valley, signs for three longtime health care institutions are coming down.
On Tuesday, mayors, state legislators, Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll and other officials gathered outside Holy Family Hospital in Methuen to hear the new name for the medical facility and those for Holy Family Hospital in Haverhill and Lawrence General Hospital.
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The police chief for the Colorado Mental Health Hospital in Pueblo used road-rage-like tactics to confront speeding drivers while he was off-duty, outside of his jurisdiction and in an unmarked state vehicle, prompting drivers to call 911 at least three times last year, an internal investigation found.
Chief Richard McMorran was reinstated to his position Aug. 15 with a 5% pay cut after a 10-month investigation into his actions. He was on paid administrative leave during that investigation, which included a review by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and a referral to prosecutors for potential criminal charges.
In an email Thursday, 10th Judicial District Attorney Kala Beauvais said her office is still considering whether criminal charges are warranted.
“We are nearing a decision,” she said.
McMorran did not return a request for comment Thursday.
On at least six occasions between January and September 2024, McMorran confronted drivers on Interstate 25 who he believed were speeding, the investigation found. The chief tailgated, raced and pulled up beside drivers. He yelled, gestured, swerved into the other drivers’ lanes, refused to let them pass, and “paced” them to gauge their speed, investigators found.
He was in the unmarked vehicle, outside of hospital grounds, off-duty and sometimes wearing plain clothes during the confrontations, the investigation found. It was not immediately clear Thursday whether the unmarked vehicle was equipped with police lights and sirens.
Two of the incidents, in January 2024 and September 2024, ended in actual traffic stops, the internal investigation found.
“You had multiple interactions with members of the public that caused them to fear for their safety and call 911. These interactions were repeatedly inappropriate, unprofessional, demonstrated poor judgment and exhibited a lack of understanding about the impact you have on members of the public when behaving this way,” Chris Frenz, deputy director of operations and legal affairs at the Office of Civil and Forensic Mental Health, the agency that operates the state’s mental health hospitals, wrote in an Aug. 13 disciplinary letter.
Drivers called 911 during three of the confrontations. At least one of the drivers was concerned that the chief “had ulterior motives other than traffic enforcement,” Frenz wrote.
The investigation considered whether the chief was specifically targeting women in the confrontations, spokeswoman Stephanie Fredrickson confirmed. She said the targeted drivers were both men and women but declined to give an exact breakdown of their genders “to protect their privacy.”
Frenz concluded that the chief was not specifically stopping women.
“I do not believe you were targeting (name redacted) or anyone specifically, as you admitted that it was common practice for you to identify people speeding and use various techniques to get them to slow down,” he wrote. “However, your practices very clearly gave an initial appearance of some type of targeting or harassing behavior from the viewpoint of any specific person subject to this behavior.”
During the internal investigation, McMorran denied swerving or tailgating, but generally acknowledged the incidents and told internal investigators that he feels he has “an obligation to intervene when people are driving too fast.” He said he pulled alongside drivers to monitor their speeds because his vehicle is not equipped with radar, and that the “perceived yelling and gesturing” was his way of telling the drivers to slow down.
“You were shocked that anyone thought you were trying to run off the road. You’ve never done anything like that before,” Frenz wrote in the letter, summarizing the chief’s positions during the investigation. “…If you had known so many people had been calling in, you would have approached things differently.”
The chief noted during the internal investigation that he is allowed to make traffic stops. He is a POST-certified police officer, state records show. Frenz wrote in his letter that “current policy” gives the chief the authority to conduct traffic stops.
Frenz wrote that he was reducing the chief’s salary by $498 a month, not because he made traffic stops, but because of the way he did so.
“You should have known that pacing people in an unmarked vehicle, with no uniform, without pulling them over, would cause confusion and fear,” Frenz wrote. “Moreover, your repeated conduct on the freeway reflected poorly on the department.”
In addition to the pay cut, McMorran, for the next year, is prohibited from driving his state vehicle outside of the hospital’s sprawling 300-acre campus, is prohibited from conducting traffic stops unless there is an immediate health or safety concern, and cannot drive his state vehicle to his home or use it for personal reasons, according to the letter.
The state mental health hospital’s small police department handles criminal matters at the 516-bed campus in Pueblo. The department includes a handful of certified police officers, as well as a number of security guards.
McMorran was appointed chief in 2018 when his predecessor was abruptly removed from his position, placed on administrative leave and escorted from the premises. The reason for the previous chief’s departure was not clear, but he did not return from leave.
More than $250 million down, another $530 million to go.
That’s how much of a projected $783 million state budget hole the Colorado legislature filled by the time a special session called to address the impact of the federal tax bill ended Tuesday afternoon — and the larger amount that still remains. Erasing the rest of the red ink will fall to Gov. Jared Polis, who plans to rebalance this year’s budget in the coming days through a mix of cuts to state funding and a big dip into the rainy-day fund.
Over six days, the legislature’s majority Democrats fulfilled their part of a plan worked out with the governor’s office: to pass legislation that is expected to generate enough revenue to close about a third of the shortfall projected for the state’s budget in the current fiscal year, which began July 1. They ended tax breaks and found other ways to offset declining state income tax revenue, while leaving spending cuts largely for Polis to decide.
“What we did here in this special session is soften the blow,” said Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat who chairs the legislature’s budget committee. “But when the federal government cuts $1.2 billion in revenue from the state with a stroke of a pen, after we’ve already cut $1.2 billion (from the budget) in the regular session, that’s a tough deficit to come back from in a way that doesn’t impact the people of Colorado.”
The special session ended with 11 bills going to Polis for final approval. Five sought to fill the budget gap, largely by ending tax incentives for businesses and high-income earners.
The single largest revenue-raising measure, House Bill 1004, will auction off tax credits that can be claimed in future tax years for a discount. Backers expected that bill to bring in an additional $100 million to state coffers this year, at the expense of about $125 million in future years.
Together, those measures add up to $253 million in revenue to reduce the projected deficit — money that Democrats say represents averted cuts to Medicaid, schools and hospitals.
“Colorado legislators stepped up and helped protect children’s food access and minimized the devastating cost increases to health insurance premiums across the state, to the best of our ability,” Polis, who signed two of the new bills earlier Tuesday, said in a statement.
The legislature’s Joint Budget Committee expects to meet Thursday to hear Polis’ plan to address the remaining $500 million or so, including mid-year spending cuts.
As part of his call for a special session on Aug. 6, Polis announced a statewide hiring freeze. He said in an interview before the session started that he hoped to avoid cuts to K-12 education, but he has left all other options on the table, including Medicaid program spending.
The plan also factors in a significant use of reserves to offset some of the remaining gap.
Partisan debates
Over the past week, Republicans fought the Democrats’ bills, but strong Democratic majorities in both legislative chambers all but preordained the outcome.
“Not only did we increase taxes, we’re balancing the budget on the back of small businesses,” said Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican on the budget committee.
One of the bills heading to Polis would erase a fee paid by the state to businesses for collecting sales taxes — an outdated subsidy, according to Democrats, and an unnecessary new burden now put on businesses, according to Republicans.
Republicans said before the session that they’d likely challenge several bills in court over allegations that they violate provisions in the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights that require voter approval for tax increases. Kirkmeyer and Rep. Rick Taggart, a Grand Junction Republican who’s also on the budget committee, said bills going to the governor that would eliminate some tax credits and allow the sale of tax credits against future collections seemed particularly vulnerable to a challenge under TABOR.
Debate throughout the special session took a distinctly partisan edge. Democrats laid the cuts on congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump and called the federal tax bill a de facto theft of benefits from the poorest Coloradans to benefit the wealthiest.
Republicans countered that the federal bill delivered much-needed tax cuts, and they said Democrats sought to yank those away instead of cutting partisan priorities.
Legislators begin to gather in the Senate Chambers before the start of another day of the special legislative session at the Colorado State Capitol in Denver on Aug. 26, 2025. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
Bills on wolves, artificial intelligence
Other bills passed sought to respond to different aspects of the federal bill, formerly known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” as well as other priorities.
Lawmakers stripped general fund money away from the voter-approved program to reintroduce wolves in the state, though releases are expected to continue this winter. They tweaked ballot language for a measure about taxes for universal school meals to allow that money to go to general food assistance, as well, if voters approve it in November.
The legislature also approved a bill allowing state Medicaid program to pay Planned Parenthood for services provided, after the federal government specifically barred federal money from going to the organization.
Polis included in his call of the session that lawmakers address concerns swirling around the state’s first-in-the-nation regulations of artificial intelligence after a similar effort in the spring blew up. The rules now in law go into effect in February.
After days of bruising negotiations, lawmakers punted on any new changes and delayed the existing rules from going into effect until the end of June — giving them time to resume the debate during the next regular legislative session in January.
Colorado won’t have to claw back nearly $60 million it paid to public hospitals, including Denver Health and more than two dozen rural facilities, under a deal announced Tuesday to end the state’s court battles with UCHealth.
“We thank UCHealth for working with us to resolve this issue in a manner that protects all Colorado hospitals,” Kim Bimestefer, executive director of the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, said in a news release.
UCHealth sued the department, alleging it had incorrectly labeled two of its hospitals as public, rather than private nonprofits. A Denver District Court judge agreed, and ordered the state to reclassify Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs and Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins. The department filed an appeal in July.
Their classification matters because of the state’s provider tax.
Hospitals pay about $1.3 billion each year, gaining about $500 million in federal matching funds. Most come out ahead, though those with relatively few patients covered by Medicaid lose out. In future years, the state will have to reduce its tax rate under provisions of H.R. 1, colloquially known as President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill.”
The state pools the money by hospital type, and distributes it based on how each facility’s Medicaid share compares to the others in their group.
Moving Memorial and Poudre Valley from the public to the private bucket means that less money remains for all public hospitals to divide up, and that Memorial and Poudre Valley likely will get more back from the provider tax, because they’re being compared against hospitals that generally see fewer Medicaid patients.
The state said that to retrospectively reclassify the UCHealth hospitals and distribute the funds accordingly, it would have to take back $59.7 million paid last year to 29 publicly owned hospitals.
Denver Health didn’t comment on the possibility, but a group representing 13 Eastern Plains hospitals said some wouldn’t be able to hand over a significant chunk of cash, because they already used their share of the provider tax to pay employees and cover other expenses.
Under the agreement, the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing will drop its appeal, and UCHealth won’t demand redistribution of provider taxes it paid in previous years.
UCHealth president and CEO Elizabeth Concordia said the system supports the provider tax program, and thanked the state for working together on a solution.
“The greatest successes for patients and our state happen when hospitals, HCPF and the administration work together collaboratively,” she said in a news release.
The hospital system also agreed to donate $5.7 million to compensate public hospitals that may lose out with less money coming into their bucket. The Colorado Hospital Association will help determine how to divide up the donation.
“Instability or uncertainty in the fee could have pushed vulnerable hospitals past the breaking point,” Jeff Tieman, president and CEO of the Colorado Hospital Association, said in a news release. “UCHealth’s approach to waive changes for last year and invest millions this year demonstrates a real commitment to protecting access to care in rural Colorado. We are deeply grateful for their partnership.”
METHUEN — A series of large surrenders have left all four MSPCA-Angell shelters, including Nevins Farm, at capacity.
On Thursday, the nonprofit sounded the alarm on a situation that began with the surrender of 50 cats from a single Norfolk County home in July. The pattern continued into August with more large-scale arrivals, according to a press release from the MSPCA.
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WASHINGTON, DC, July 2, 2025 (Newswire.com)
– Responding to escalating fiscal pressures resulting from anticipated Medicaid reimbursement cuts, Black Book Research today released a flash poll reaffirming its 2025 rankings of healthcare advisory firms most capable of guiding hospitals reliant on Medicaid through strategic planning and critical operational adjustments.
Given the heightened vulnerability of providers which derive considerable revenue from Medicaid, identifying the five most impactful advisory firm engagements has become crucial. “Without proactive strategic support, these hospitals face a substantial risk of severe financial distress or closure, significantly impacting community health services and the patients who rely on them,” said Doug Brown, Founder of Black Book.
Approximately 300 U.S. hospitals, primarily safety-net, rural, children’s, and specialty facilities, are estimated to derive 30% or more of their revenue from Medicaid in 2025. These providers are particularly vulnerable to Medicaid reimbursement cuts.
All US hospitals already rely significantly on Medicaid funds, averaging about 14.6% of revenue nationwide. Given the scale of potential impact, these institutions urgently require focused strategic support to manage anticipated financial disruptions and continue serving vulnerable populations effectively.
A recent targeted Black Book flash survey of 40 hospital administrators identified five essential strategic priorities for health systems deriving 15% or more of their revenue from Medicaid, pairing each priority with top-rated advisory firms based on client satisfaction, proven outcomes, and effectiveness in Medicaid-driven engagements.
The advisory firm rankings are based on extensive surveys involving more than 4,000 healthcare executives, CFOs, and strategic planners from Q4 2024 to Q2 2025 and have been available to view and download the complete report at the Black Book website for no charge to industry stakeholders since March 2025.
5 Essential Strategies for Medicaid-Dependent Health Systems and Their Top-Rated 2025 Advisory Firms:
Hospitals must prepare rigorously for Medicaid funding reductions through detailed financial scenario modeling, proactive cost containment strategies, and reevaluation of service-line profitability. Kaufman Hall emerged as the highest-rated firm, recognized for its expertise in providing swift, actionable insights, precise risk forecasting, and tailored financial recovery strategies that align effectively with the unique fiscal demands of safety-net institutions.
Hospitals facing significant reimbursement reductions must optimize their operational efficiencies and cost structures. Huron Consulting Group was recognized for its success in reshaping operations, identifying significant cost-saving opportunities, streamlining clinical workflows, and implementing sustainable productivity improvements to effectively absorb Medicaid revenue reductions.
Proactive engagement with Medicaid agencies, managed care organizations, and legislative stakeholders is vital to sustaining stable reimbursement streams. Leavitt Partners earned top honors due to their extensive network of policy experts, robust relationships within state governments, and proven capability in forming provider coalitions. Clients highly praised Leavitt Partners’ strategic guidance in interpreting regulatory developments and effectively influencing policy outcomes favorable to hospitals.
Reducing Medicaid dependence requires strategic diversification into services and market segments with higher commercial reimbursement potential. Deloitte was recognized for excellence by hospitals aiming to expand outpatient capacity, introduce commercially successful specialty services, and modernize payer engagement strategies. Deloitte’s data-driven methodologies and strong implementation capabilities received particular commendation from clients.
With millions of patients facing Medicaid eligibility redetermination and potential disenrollment, hospitals must secure continuous coverage within their communities. Chartis Group received the highest client recognition for successfully assisting hospitals in developing scalable coverage retention programs, forging partnerships with Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and Community-Based Organizations (CBOs), and deploying digital outreach solutions. Chartis was particularly noted for its integration of community-centric strategies with sophisticated analytics to minimize coverage disruptions.
__________
These strategic frameworks and advisory rankings are featured in the 2025 Black Book of Healthcare IT Consultants and Advisory Firms, providing in-depth data and insights on 260 HIT management consulting organizations. This resource is available free to hospitals, health systems, and healthcare providers impacted by Medicaid policy shifts. Download the full report at https://blackbookmarketresearch.com/2025-black-book-of-healthcare-it-consultants-and-advisory-firms Black Book maintains a rigorous, independent methodology, strictly prohibiting vendor sponsorships or advertisements to ensure unbiased, credible client experiences.
“Hospitals reliant on Medicaid are entering an era marked by unprecedented financial challenges, including impending reimbursement cuts, complex patient churn due to redetermination processes, and inflexible managed care rates,” said Brown. “The advisory firms highlighted in this report are not merely supportive resources; they represent essential partnerships. Their proven strategies, measurable outcomes, and deep Medicaid policy expertise are indispensable for hospitals aiming to navigate this turbulent landscape successfully.”
About Black Book Research
Black Book™ is a leading independent source for peer-validated performance rankings of consulting, advisory, and IT vendor organizations since 2004. Utilizing robust internal, partner-based panels, and extensive crowdsourced polling, Black Book has engaged, in particular, more than 3.3 million healthcare professionals since 2011, maintaining steadfast dedication to transparency, accuracy, and independence without vendor or advisory firm influence. Black Book maintains a rigorous, independent methodology, strictly prohibiting vendor sponsorships or association partnerships to ensure unbiased, credible client experiences. For more information, contact research@blackbookmarketresearch.com or visit www.blackbookmarketresearch.com.
New Black Book Research survey reveals industry-wide concerns as tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada, and China threaten to escalate healthcare costs, disrupt supply chains, and create affordability challenges for patients.
WASHINGTON, February 2, 2025 (Newswire.com)
– A new survey conducted by Black Book Research has illuminated significant concerns among healthcare supply chain professionals, pharmaceutical executives, distributors, and medical equipment manufacturers about the financial and operational disruptions caused by recently imposed tariffs on imported goods from Mexico, Canada, and China.
Leveraging Black Book’s advanced surveying technologies, the panel poll conducted over the past week gathered responses from 160 industry professionals spanning key stakeholder segments, including hospital finance and supply chain executives, payers, patients, health market customers, pharmaceutical and medical equipment manufacturers, and physicians and ancillary practice administrators. The survey aimed to assess the anticipated consequences of the 25% tariff on goods from Mexico and Canada, along with the 10% tariff on goods from China. The findings underscore widespread apprehension about escalating costs for hospitals, physicians, payers, and patients.
Survey Findings:
1. How significantly will the tariffs increase the cost of medical equipment and pharmaceuticals?
164 of the 200 survey respondents predict that costs for hospitals and health systems will surge by at least 15% in the next six months due to increased import expenses.
69% estimate pharmaceutical costs will rise by at least 10% as a result of the China tariff on active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs).
2. What impact will the tariffs have on medical supply chain operations?
90% of healthcare supply chain professionals responding foresee major disruptions in procurement processes and contract negotiations with suppliers due to increased costs and pricing volatility.
81% of medical equipment manufacturers predict longer lead times and supply shortages stemming from increased production costs and import restrictions.
3. How will hospitals and physicians manage the higher costs?
90% of the twenty-one hospital finance executives surveyed report they will need to shift increased costs onto insurers and patients in the form of higher service charges.
94% of healthcare administrators anticipate reducing procurement volumes or delaying equipment upgrades to mitigate financial strain.
4. What effect will the tariffs have on payers and patient affordability?
84% of payers expect to see higher claims costs due to increased pricing on medical treatments and drugs.
48% of payer executives believe that insurance premiums will rise within the next 12 months as a direct consequence of increased supply chain expenses.
5. Will alternative sourcing strategies mitigate tariff impacts?
27% of respondents report that they are actively seeking domestic or alternative international suppliers to offset higher costs from Mexico, Canada, and China.
However, 92% of pharmaceutical manufacturers caution that switching suppliers could result in regulatory delays and supply inconsistencies, particularly for critical medications.
6. How will the tariffs impact healthcare IT vendors, software, and managed services?
39% of healthcare IT executives foresee increased costs for software licensing, cloud computing, and managed services due to higher prices for imported technology components and IT infrastructure.
91% of provider IT leaders anticipate delays in planned digital transformation projects as budgets shift to cover increased operational costs.
16% of healthcare IT vendors predict that tariffs will increase the cost of essential hardware, including servers, networking equipment, and medical IT devices, impacting service delivery timelines and pricing for clients.
Industry Response & Outlook
“Healthcare providers, payers, and patients will all experience the financial ramifications of these tariffs,” said Doug Brown, Founder of Black Book. “As medical supply costs escalate, hospitals and insurers will be forced to make difficult financial decisions, inevitably passing increased expenses down to patients through higher out-of-pocket costs.” With the healthcare sector bracing for the full impact of these tariffs, Black Book Research remains committed to tracking and analyzing emerging supply chain trends, cost containment strategies, and industry-wide adaptations to mitigate risks and sustain affordability.
About Black Book Research: Black Book Research is a premier source for unbiased, comprehensive market research and customer satisfaction surveys in the healthcare IT and services industries. Our independent methodologies provide real-time, actionable insights that inform strategic decision-making across the healthcare ecosystem. Black Book’s surveying technologies and industry outreach capabilities ensure timely, high-impact polling results, enabling healthcare organizations to respond effectively to market dynamics. Learn more at www.blackbookmarketresearch.com.
For the first time, Coloradans have a clear picture of where they can go for sometimes-controversial health services such as abortion, gender-affirming care or medical aid-in-dying.
In much of the state, though, the answer is “nowhere close.”
Hospitals are required to disclose data about restrictions on 66 services related to reproductive, gender-affirming and end-of-life care to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment under a law passed in 2023. Starting this month, they also must provide copies of their disclosure forms to patients ahead of their appointments.
Only three Colorado counties — Denver, Douglas and Weld — have unrestricted access in at least one hospital to three services from the list that The Denver Post sampled.
Access to gender-affirming surgery was especially limited; only 13 of Colorado’s 64 counties have a hospital without non-medical restrictions on a double mastectomy, also known as “top surgery,” for gender affirmation. (Eighteen counties have no hospital within their borders, and the rest either don’t offer mastectomies to anyone or restricted who could receive one.)
Nor was access to the other sampled services much broader.
Thirteen Colorado counties have a hospital that would assist with a request for medical aid-in-dying without religious or other non-medical limitations, and 15 have one that would provide comprehensive treatment for a miscarriage, which can include drugs and procedures used in induced abortions.
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Facilities that restrict the services they offer aren’t likely to make changes because of the law — particularly since many of the restrictions stem from religious beliefs — but at least patients will know what to expect when they go for care, said Dr. Patricia Gabow, a former CEO of Denver Health who has written about the intersection of religion and health care.
Of course, transparency only does so much for people who live in a county where the only hospitals are Catholic-owned, Gabow said. Catholic hospitals, which include those owned by CommonSpirit Health and some belonging to Intermountain Health, generally don’t offer contraception, sterilization, gender-affirming care, medical aid-in-dying or abortion.
“People who live in Durango, I don’t know what they’re supposed to do,” she said.
Mercy Hospital in that city follows Catholic ethical and religious directives for health care, and the closest hospital that offers comprehensive reproductive services or assistance with medical aid-in-dying is in Del Norte, about two and a half hours away.
Catholic doctrine requires health care providers to “respect all stages of life,” and not participate in procedures such as medical aid-in-dying or sterilization without a medical reason, said Lindsay Radford, spokeswoman for CommonSpirit Health, which owns Mercy.
The system’s hospitals work with patients and their families to provide appropriate pain and symptom relief as they near death, she said.
“We respect and honor the physician-patient relationship, and medical decisions are made by a patient and their doctor. Patients who seek care at a CommonSpirit Health hospital or clinic are fully informed of all treatment options, including those we do not perform,” she said in a statement.
Geographic and political differences
Generally, access to potentially controversial services was greater in more areas with larger populations, though with significant exceptions.
Both of Jefferson County’s hospitals, St. Anthony Hospital in Lakewood and Lutheran Hospital in Wheat Ridge, won’t allow measures to end a pregnancy if a fetus still has a heartbeat.
The state’s form conflates “threatened” and “completed” miscarriages, said Sara Quale, spokeswoman for Intermountain Health, which owns Lutheran Hospital. The hospital doesn’t restrict care once a fetus has died, but if it still has a heartbeat, doctors attempt to treat whatever is causing the miscarriage, she said. The most common cause of miscarriages is a problem with a fetus’s chromosomes, which doesn’t allow it to survive and has no treatment.
In contrast, people in rural Prowers County on the Eastern Plains can get comprehensive miscarriage treatment without driving elsewhere. So can residents of Rio Grande County.
Local politics also don’t necessarily match up with access.
The three counties that had at least one hospital offering unrestricted access to the three sampled services were deep-blue Denver and thoroughly red Weld and Douglas.
While their residents might differ on many issues, Weld and Douglas counties shared one common characteristic with Denver: They’re home to at least one hospital owned by a secular system, such as UCHealth, Denver Health or HCA HealthOne.
At least 22 hospitals in Colorado have religious restrictions on care options: 17 owned or formerly owned by Catholic organizations, and five affiliated with the Adventist faith. In some cases, when a hospital changes hands, provisions of the deal require the new owner to honor the seller’s religious and ethical rules, even if the buyer is secular.
Some secular organizations also listed certain services as restricted.
UCHealth generally doesn’t serve patients under 15, while Denver Health doesn’t provide abortions under certain circumstances because of concerns about losing federal funding, spokesman Dane Roper said.
The seven HealthOne hospitals also had non-religious restrictions, but didn’t specify their nature. Banner Health didn’t respond to inquiries about service limitations at its five Colorado hospitals.
Informed decision-making
So far, Colorado is the only state that requires hospitals to directly tell patients when they don’t offer services for religious or other non-medical reasons, said Alison Gill, vice president of legal and policy with American Atheists, which supported the law as it went through the legislature.
That provision will be important not only for Coloradans seeking care, but for people traveling to the state because of its welcoming policies around reproductive and gender-affirming care, she said.
“We are encouraging other states to enact similar provisions because it is essential to provide patients with information about service availability so that they can make informed decisions about their health care,” she said.
The law has some limitations, said Gabow, formerly of Denver Health. For example, an outpatient gynecology office owned by a religious health system doesn’t have to give patients the disclosure form, and insurers don’t have to include hospitals offering care without limitations in their networks, she said.
Colorado’s law won’t inherently increase access to health care, but it may prevent surprises for patients who don’t know to look up the closest hospital’s religious affiliation or don’t realize it could affect them, said Dr. Sam Doernberg, a physician researcher at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston.
Doernberg wrote a study that found 132 counties nationwide had “religious monopolies” in their hospital markets as of 2020. The vast majority involved Catholic hospitals, and 11 involved Adventist hospitals. The study didn’t include counties that don’t have a hospital and are adjacent to a monopoly county, so the actual number where people don’t have the full range of choices may be higher, he said.
While no states have tried them yet, researchers do have a few ideas to more directly increase access to care while still respecting the religious rights of organizations that own hospitals, Doernberg said.
For example, they could directly fund public health departments so they can provide more reproductive services in areas where the dominant health system limits options, or they could require that insurance companies don’t charge patients an out-of-network rate if none of the in-network hospitals offer gender-affirming care, for example, he said.
“There are other possible solutions that are not currently being pursued,” he said.
A worker blew the whistle on alleged “unsafe, unsanitary, and dangerous conditions” at Children’s Hospital of Michigan.
A former employee of the housekeeping and environmental services company contracted to clean Detroit’s Harper-Hutzel Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Michigan has filed a lawsuit, alleging he was fired and discriminated against in retaliation for blowing the whistle on unsanitary conditions in operating rooms, patient areas, and baby delivery rooms.
The lawsuit was filed last week in Wayne County Circuit Court against North Carolina-based Compass Group and Crothall Healthcare, which were contracted to provide cleaning services for Tenet Healthcare, the for-profit parent company of the Detroit Medical Center, which operates the two hospitals.
Jerrell Atkins alleges he was fired in March, a year after he reported “unsafe, unsanitary, and dangerous conditions” in a complaint to Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration (MIOSHA). According to the complaint, doctors were delivering babies in operating rooms with unsterile and unclean surgical equipment, beds, and rooms. Hospital workers were also using unsanitary machinery and equipment that was “contaminated by raw sewage and feces in surgical operating rooms,” Atkins alleged.
One of the biggest problems, the lawsuit claims, was the “shockingly outrageous” lack of cleaning supplies, which was part of an “extreme” cost-cutting move.
To avoid penalties from public agencies, the companies fabricated records to suggest they were in compliance, according to the suit.
Atkins, who is Black and gay, also alleged that upper management used racial and homophobic slurs “within earshot” of him and ignored his complaints about it.
The lawsuit alleges retaliation, hostile work environment, wrongful termination, and violations of the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act.
“This lawsuit is just part of a sharp blade that is being used to eradicate the cancerous culture of profits over safety fostered by Compass and Crothall,” said Muneeb M. Ahmad, an attorney with Just Right Law, which filed the lawsuit. “This lawsuit is a beacon of hope to other employees who may be afraid to speak up and is meant to give a voice against this retaliatory and discriminatory behavior.”
This is just the latest lawsuit filed by former Compass Group and Crothall Healthcare employees who worked at Tenet’s hospitals in Detroit. In June 2022, Denise Bonds, of Detroit, and Shenesia Rhodes, of St. Clair Shores, sued Tenet, Compass Group and Crothall Healthcare, alleging they were fired after raising concerns about the shortage of cleaning supplies and insufficient staffing. The shortage left Detroit’s Harper University Hospital and Hutzel Women’s Hospital dirty and unsanitary.
Metro Times reached out to Tenet Healthcare, Compass Group, and Crothall Healthcare for comment but they did not immediately respond.
Colorado’s senators and a congressman are demanding answers from U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs leadership over a series of troubling reports about its Aurora hospital.
Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, both Democrats, and Rep. Jason Crow, an Aurora Democrat, sent a letter to VA leadership on Monday requesting an accounting of patient safety issues, further explanation over its current pause in surgeries due to a mysterious residue on its medical equipment, and steps the hospital has taken to address pervasive cultural problems among its staff.
“As problems persist within the (Eastern Colorado hospital system), we are increasingly concerned about the quality of care Colorado veterans receive, a lack of adherence to the required medical and employee procedures, and how recent leadership changes have impeded the system’s effectiveness,” the lawmakers wrote.
The letter comes on the heels of two scathing reports from the VA’s Office of Inspector General, which investigates departmental waste, fraud and abuse.
The probes, released June 24, found Aurora’s Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center paused surgeries for more than a year in 2022 and 2023 because the hospital didn’t have the staff to care for those patients after their procedures. They never told the federal VA as required, the investigation found.
The second inspector general report said the Aurora VA suffered from poor organizational health, citing widespread fear among staff that promoted disenfranchisement. Doctors stopped performing high-risk procedures, one staffer said, for fear of punishment if something went wrong.
The investigation mirrored The Denver Post’s reporting since last fall, which found the toxic workplace and culture of fear had permeated a wide swath of departments, leading to high turnover, especially among senior leadership positions. The Post also found that the head of the hospital’s prosthetics department was instructing employees to cancel veterans’ orders to clear a large backlog. The VA later confirmed The Post’s reporting.
Bennet, Hickenlooper and Crow, in their letter, asked the VA to respond to a series of questions, including detailed queries about the mysterious residue that has halted hundreds of surgeries since April. The Post first reported in May that the hospital was rescheduling or referring to community hospitals all surgeries that rely on reusable equipment.
The elected officials also asked the VA about staffing shortages at the hospital network, along with reports that many veterans in the system have been waiting months for their first face-to-face appointment with a provider.
“We share the goal of providing veterans across the country with timely, quality and consistent health care,” the letter states. “The continuous appointment delays and ongoing quality issues at (the hospital) undermine this objective.”
In Colorado, we love our pets, so it’s personal when the care they need is out of reach. A recent Colorado State University study found that veterinary care is unattainable for a third of pet owners.
This is why a group of animal welfare advocates have come together to lead ballot initiatives 144 and 145. These measures will safely increase access to veterinary care in Colorado by expanding the use of telehealth and by introducing a career pathway for a master’s-level veterinary professional associate (VPA) position, similar to a physician assistant in human medicine.
In a recent op-ed, state politician Karen McCormick, raised concerns about these two ballot initiatives. We are a group of veterinarians with a lifelong commitment to the well-being of animals and the community. We are leading this measure and feel compelled to offer our perspective on why these measures are crucial for the health of our pets. Initiatives 144 and 145 are critical steps to safely increasing veterinary care for pets in Colorado and addressing the dire shortage of veterinary professionals.
Animal Health Economics estimates a shortage of nearly 15,000 veterinarians will exist in the U.S. by 2030, leaving as many as 75 million pets without veterinary care. This is largely the result of a veterinary workforce crisis. There are simply too few veterinary professionals to meet the demand. A study from the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges (AAVMC) found that there were 2,000-3,000 more open jobs than veterinarians available to hire.
Ballot Initiative 144 increases access to veterinary telemedicine, allowing pet owners to create a new relationship with a veterinarian and receive care virtually when appropriate. This same model has been successful in human healthcare, and was passed nearly unanimously in Florida, Arizona and California last year. Rep. McCormick claims to have passed a bill (HB 24-1048) on behalf of the veterinary trade association as an “expansion” of tele-technologies. What she fails to share is that her bill eliminated options for many pet owners to access veterinary care virtually.
Even Gov. Jared Polis stated his disappointment in this new restriction when the bill passed, saying he was concerned that it “creates additional impediments to veterinary care, especially in rural areas.” Initiative 144 repairs this damage and truly expands telehealth.
Ballot Initiative 145 creates a career pathway for a veterinary “PA”. These professionals will have a master’s degree in veterinary clinical care and must work under the supervision of a licensed Colorado veterinarian. Initiative 145 requires robust training from a leading veterinary school in the country. It also empowers the State Board of Veterinary Medicine to create licensing and other regulatory requirements. Initiative 145 leads to increased capacity in veterinary clinics, particularly in rural communities, while driving down costs for pet owners.
Despite McCormick’s statement that these initiatives are being funded by corporate interests outside of Colorado, to date, no funding has been received from any national veterinary corporation. These initiatives are being driven by the Vet Care Coalition, a grassroots alliance of veterinarians, technicians, animal welfare advocates and pet owners in Colorado who see the devastating impact of the critical veterinary workforce crisis.
It is important that this effort is led by the individuals most impacted by the pet care crisis. Last week alone, more than 100 Colorado pet owners contributed over $7,000 to the campaign. The Dumb Friends League is the biggest contributor because they run one of the only subsidized veterinary hospitals in the state and they see firsthand the pet owners who struggle to access care every day. They care for the pets that other private practices, like the one Rep. McCormick retired from many years ago, turn away because they are under-staffed and unaffordable for many Coloradans.
By supporting these ballot initiatives, voters like you are increasing access to
care in Colorado. You are preventing animal suffering. And you are ensuring Colorado pets get the care they need and deserve regardless of their zip code, or their owner’s paycheck. These aren’t the only solutions to the veterinary crisis, but they will make a big difference. Let’s work together to protect animals. This November, we encourage the voters of Colorado to use their voice to prevent animal suffering and increase access to veterinary care.
Apryl Steele is the CEO of the Dumb Friends League. She has nearly two decades of experience in veterinary practice and served as president of the Colorado Veterinary Medical Association (CVMA), the Denver Area Veterinary Medical Society, the American Association of Feline Practitioners, and the Animal Assistance Foundation. She earned her DVM at Colorado State University. Missy Tasky graduated from Auburn University College of Veterinary Medicine and currently works as the Lead Medical Team Coach at Blue Heron Consulting in Denver. Tasky was also a founding partner of Gentle Touch Animal Hospital. Jo Myers brings more than three decades of experience to her role as a veterinary consultant for the telehealth marketplace, Vetster. She graduated from Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine and has taught at an accredited veterinary technician program.
BOSTON — Lawmakers are seeking more support for the state’s safety net hospitals amid rising concerns about the fiscal health of a fund that helps cover medical costs for large numbers of uninsured and low-income patients.
Hospitals and health insurers pay into the so-called safety net fund – a pool of money that helps fund care for hundreds of thousands of low-income residents who are uninsured or underinsured – with the state chipping in additional funding. But if the fund runs low, hospitals are on the hook for the shortfall.
The fund is projected to have a shortfall of more than $220 million in the upcoming fiscal year, hospitals say, rising to the highest level in nearly two decades.
Without additional funding, financially challenged hospitals will be forced to cover the deficit, leaving less money to provide medical care for low-income and uninsured patients, they say.
An amendment to the Senate’s version of the $57.9 billion state budget filed by Sen. Barry Finegold, D-Andover, would require commercial health insurance companies to cover 50% of any revenue shortfalls in the safety net fund.
“We need to do something to help our local hospitals,” Finegold said. “This is part of a long-term problem with funding for hospitals that serve the state’s most vulnerable residents. We need to fix it.”
Many earmarks
Finegold’s proposal is one of more than 1,000 amendments to the Senate’s budget, many of them local earmarks seeking to divert more state money to local governments, schools, cash-strapped community groups and nonprofits. Only a handful will likely make it into the Senate’s final spending package.
The plan faces pushback from the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans, which represents commercial insurers who would be impacted by the proposed changes to the hospital safety net program.
Lora Pellegrini, the group’s president and CEO, said requiring insurers to cover the fund’s shortfalls would jeopardize negotiations between the state Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that seek to reduce assessments paid by medical insurance carriers.
“This really came out of nowhere, and would be counterproductive to those efforts,” she said. “We have a committee process for a reason and that’s where these kinds of special interest issues should be vetted, not in the budget.”
But the move is backed by the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association, which says requiring insurers to cover the shortfall would help alleviate an “unmanageable financial burden” on the health care system “by broadening funding support for the program.”
“The Health Safety Net is a vital component of Massachusetts’ healthcare infrastructure and its ability to cover the costs of care for low-income and uninsured patients,” Daniel McHale, MHP’s vice president for Healthcare Finance & Policy, said in a statement.
“At this increasingly fragile time for the entire health care system, it is imperative that we take the steps needed to stabilize the safety net for the people and providers who rely on it each day.”
Local hospitals affected
The state’s safety net hospitals and community health centers – which include Lawrence Hospital, Salem Hospital, Holy Family Hospital in Methuen and Anna Jaques Hospital in Newburyport – serve a disproportionate percentage of low-income patients.
Many are heavily dependent on Medicaid reimbursements, which are typically less than commercial insurance payouts.
Nearly 30% of Lawrence General’s gross revenue is for care provided to Medicaid, or MassHealth, patients. The state average is 18%.
Many community hospitals are collecting from low-paying government insurance programs, and getting below-average reimbursements from commercial insurers, advocates say.
Lawmakers also swept money from the hospital safety net fund to help cover the costs of new Medicare savings programs that pay some or all of eligible senior citizen’s premiums and other health care costs, including prescriptions.
Hospitals are also seeing increased demand from uninsured patients as hundreds of thousands of Medicaid recipients see their state-sponsored health care coverage dropped following the end of federal pandemic-related programs, which is driving up costs. Claims processing problems are another factor adding to hospital costs, they say.
Those and other factors have widened the fund’s shortfall from $68 million in fiscal 2022 to more than $210 million in the previous fiscal year, according to the hospital association. Combined, the shortfall could reach $600 million for the three fiscal years, the association said.
Biggest expense
The House, which approved its $58.2 billion version of the state budget two weeks ago, proposed $17.3 million in state funding for the hospital safety net fund. The Senate, which begins debate on its version of the budget next week, has proposed a similar amount.
In the current budget, the state allocated $91.4 million for the safety net fund.
But the House budget didn’t include an amendment requiring insurers to help hospitals pay the shortfall. That means even if the Senate approves Finegold’s amendment, it would still need to be negotiated as part of the final budget before landing on Gov. Maura Healey’s desk for consideration.
Health care coverage, in the meantime, is one of the state’s biggest expenses. Medicaid costs have doubled in the past decade and now account for nearly 40% of state spending.
MassHealth serves more than 2 million people – roughly one-third of the state’s population – despite federal Medicaid redeterminations that have reduced its rolls over the past year.
