Minnesota Investigates Allina Health Over Medical Debt Policy

Modern Healthcare: Allina Health Minnesota Investigation Targets Debt Practices
Minnesota authorities are investigating Allina Health over reports that the nonprofit provider refused to treat some patients who owed medical debts, state Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) announced Friday. ... Allina Health continues to work with Minnesota authorities about its compliance with state billing and debt collection rules and offers “comprehensive support for patients with financial needs,” the company said in a statement. (Kacik, 8/21)

In other health industry news —

AP: Virginia Judge Largely Sides With Ex-Patients In Hospital's Effort To Pare Down Lawsuit Abuse Claims
Most of the claims of sexual abuse and other mistreatment made in a lawsuit by dozens of former patients of a Virginia children’s hospital can move forward, a judge has ruled, rejecting arguments that many of the allegations were time-limited under the state’s medical malpractice law. Judge Bradley Cavedo issued the ruling Aug. 14 in favor of most of the dozens of plaintiffs who are suing publicly traded health care company Universal Health Services Inc. and its co-defendants. His decision came two weeks after a hearing on the matter in Richmond Circuit Court, where attorneys for UHS, related corporate entities and the doctor at the center of many of the allegations urged him to whittle down the claims. (Rankin, 8/21)

Connecticut Public: Board Asks Why CT Didn't Act Sooner In Doctor's Disciplinary Case
A state board that disciplines physicians is asking the Department of Public Health to explain why it didn’t respond sooner to malpractice allegations filed against a doctor in another state. That doctor was the subject of a recent report by The Accountability Project, which found key information was missing about discipline and felony charges from some of the state’s licensing records. (Lloyd, 8/21)

Modern Healthcare: Corewell East President Ben Schwartz Steps Down After A Year
Corewell Health has parted ways with the president of its metro Detroit hospitals a year after his hiring. Dr. Ben Schwartz was hired in July last year to lead the eight former Beaumont Health hospitals, now called Corewell Health East, succeeding former president and CEO John Fox, who departed the system as part of Spectrum Health's merger with Beaumont. Schwartz left the role effective Monday. (Walsh, 8/21)

Modern Healthcare: Cano Health CEO Dr. Marlow Hernandez Replaced With Mark Kent
Membership-based primary care provider Cano Health named Mark Kent as its permanent CEO on Monday. Cano struck the interim title from Kent making him CEO and also elected him to the board of directors. The company also announced that former CEO Dr. Marlow Hernandez was stepping down from the board of directors, effective immediately. (Turner, 8/21)

Also —

Roll Call: Families, States Chart Path Forward On Paid Caregiving 
For Paige Hall, a single mother living in Eugene, Ore., getting paid by Medicaid to care for her son James during the pandemic was life-changing. She no longer had to worry about finding a reliable, qualified caregiver who could care for James, a nonspeaking 11-year-old with autism and severe drug-resistant epilepsy. (Hellmann, 8/21)

Stat: Diversity In Medical Illustrations Gets Boost From Chidiebere Ibe
Medical illustration is both an art and a science. But it can have a huge cultural impact, too, as medical student and illustrator Chidiebere Ibe discovered when his illustration of a pregnant Black woman and her fetus went viral in 2021. The image was groundbreaking precisely because it shouldn’t have been. People have a wide range of skin colors, and everyone develops medical conditions; it’s common sense that medical illustrations should feature a diverse range of bodies. (Merelli, 8/22)

Stat: How The First Native Hawaiian Psychiatrist Helped Diversify Medicine
Benjamin Young didn’t set out to be the first Native Hawaiian psychiatrist. Nor did he go looking to be the first physician on board what would become a landmark epic voyage from Tahiti to Hawaii back in 1976, using only the stars, sun, moon, and cloud and wave patterns as guides. And Young had no clue that, toward the beginning of his career, he would be called on to start up a first-of-its-kind program at the University of Hawaii to diversify the number of Pacific Islanders and other underrepresented groups in medicine. (Castillo, 8/22)

KFF Health News: Life In A Rural ‘Ambulance Desert’ Means Sometimes Help Isn’t On The Way 
Annie Jackson can’t know whether her sister Grena Prude might have survived had an ambulance been more readily available when she went into cardiac arrest on May 10. But Jackson is convinced her sister would have at least had a chance. Prude, 55, died at the steps of Carrollton City Hall, less than a half-mile from her county’s only ambulance station. When someone called 911 to get her help, two ambulances were on duty: One was transporting a patient to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 45 minutes away, and the other a patient to Columbus, Mississippi, a 30-minute drive. (Sisk, 8/22)