State News

Florida likely suffered the second-highest total of deaths attributed to not expanding Medicaid —2,776 between 2014 and 2017— trailing only Texas, which has an estimated 2,920 deaths, according to a report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. A bill to expand Medicaid with work requirements is making its way through the legislature, but advocates fear its chances are slim, an analysis from the Miami Herald states. Legislators in the state have already shortened the time period Medicaid can retroactively pay for hospital bills and criticized the costs of Medicaid for people with disabilities. 

The Delaware Division of Public Health announced updates to its My Healthy Community data portal, which delivers neighborhood-focused population health, environmental and social determinant of health data to state residents. Data indicators in areas like community safety, maternal and child health, healthy lifestyles and health services utilization help users understand and explore the factors that influence community health. Additionally, the data collected aids Delaware's efforts to bring transparency to healthcare spending and to set targets for improving the health of Delawareans.

As the need for mental health treatment in Missouri grows, patient advocates say the state’s refusal to enforce mental health parity may worsen barriers to access, according to KCUR. Missouri remains one of the last holdouts in the battle against the federal Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, which requires insurers to cover mental healthcare no differently than treatment for physical conditions. The federal government intended for states to enforce the law, passed in 2008, but Missouri officials insist they lack the authority. Every other state, except for Oklahoma, actively upholds the law.

As the need for mental health treatment in Missouri grows, patient advocates say the state’s refusal to enforce mental health parity may worsen barriers to access, according to KCUR. Missouri remains one of the last holdouts in the battle against the federal Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, which requires insurers to cover mental healthcare no differently than treatment for physical conditions. The federal government intended for states to enforce the law, passed in 2008, but Missouri officials insist they lack the authority. Every other state, except for Oklahoma, actively upholds the law.

Using methodology developed by HHS’ Office of the National Coordinator, a New York eHealth Collaborative (NYec) analysis revealed that the use of the Statewide Health Information Network for New York is reducing unnecessary healthcare spending in the state by $160-$195 million annually. The analysis estimates that were the network to be fully leveraged across all current participants, the state could save almost $1 billion annually by avoiding duplicative testing, avoidable hospitalizations and readmissions and preventable ED visits if current participants alone were to continue using the system’s full capabilities.

One Connecticut hospital stands alone when it comes to pursuing patients in small claims court over unpaid medical bills, according to Hartford Business. Research from the UConn Health Disparities Institute revealed that Danbury Hospital filed nearly half of the 13,824 total medical debt cases in Connecticut in 2016. The hospital claimed $8.8 million in debt from these lawsuits, compared to $10.4 million claimed in lawsuits filed by all other Connecticut hospitals that sued patients for medical debt that year. The finding has prompted Danbury Hospital to review its debt-collection policies.

State health officials in Minnesota are alarmed by the high number of incidents of adverse health events reported in a statewide report in March 2019, reports Modern Healthcare. The state requires hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers to report the 29 adverse events called "never events," but it's difficult for the Minnesota Health Department to get a sense of what the numbers mean, as this set of 29 events only represents a small percentage of situations. The state is considering tracking diagnostic errors and expanding the program to other settings where patients now get care, like outpatient clinics, as well as releasing an aggregate report of events from across the state, rather than reporting them by facility. 

Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina released a report in JAMA Pediatrics that associates a school-based telehealth program with reduced emergency department visits for children with asthma in a rural and underserved region of South Carolina, reports Healthcare Finance. Children with access to school-based telehealth were 21 percent less likely to visit the emergency department for asthma than those without access, but the three-year study showed no association between school-based telehealth and all-cause emergency department visits.

A California man with a progressive lung disease was charged more for a 27-mile air ambulance ride than the double lung transplant that saved his life, reports Kaiser Health News. Air ambulance companies are one of the worst offenders when it comes generating surprise medical bills due to their widespread use in emergency situations and tendency to remain out-of-network. Because air ambulance providers are primarily regulated by federal aviation authorities, there are limits to the consumer protections states can provide. In October 2019, California passed a law to cap out-of-pocket costs for air ambulance rides at in-network amounts, even if the company is out of network. However, the law only protects a subset of privately insured patients under the state’s jurisdiction.