State Highlights: D.C. Mayor Bowser Drops By White House, Asks For New VA Hospital; Rhode Island Removes 911 Director From Job

The Washington Post: D.C.’s Mayor Went To The White House And Asked President Trump For A New VA Hospital
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) made a surprise visit to the White House on Wednesday to discuss judicial vacancies and urged President Trump to replace the city’s troubled hospital for veterans. Bowser joined a scheduled meeting between senior adviser Beverly Perry, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice Kevin Donahue and the mayor’s top lawyer, Ronald Ross; and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone. Bowser said that after the meeting, the White House counsel offered to take her and her aides for an impromptu visit with the president in the Oval Office. (Nirappil, 3/14)

ProPublica: Head Of Rhode Island’s 911 System Is Removed From Post
The acting director of Rhode Island’s 911 emergency system has been removed from his post after state police learned he’d been training 911 call takers in CPR without proper certification. The revelation came less than 48 hours after The Public’s Radio requested verification of Gregory M. Scungio’s Red Cross certifications in an email to Rhode Island State Police. The inquiry was part of an ongoing examination of emergency medical services in Rhode Island, in conjunction with ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network. (Arditi, 3/14)

The Star Tribune: Children's Minnesota Settles With Minnesota Attorney General Over Marketing Allegations 
Children’s Minnesota, which runs the state’s largest pediatric hospital, has named an antitrust compliance officer under an agreement with the state attorney general following alleged violations of state and federal antitrust laws. Children’s denied any wrongdoing as part of the legal agreement, which was struck in November with former Attorney General Lori Swanson. Swanson alleged that Children’s agreed to not market in 2016 a tele-health service in certain ZIP codes near an unnamed health care system due to concerns the marketing might threaten a proposed business relationship between the health care groups, according to a court filing called an Assurance of Discontinuance. (Snowbeck, 3/14)

Georgia Health News: Hepatitis A Infections Surging In Georgia
Public health officials say they’ve seen a big increase in acute hepatitis A infections in Georgia. Hepatitis A is a highly contagious liver infection. It can range from a mild illness lasting a few weeks to a severe illness lasting several months. (Miller, 3/14)

Boston Globe: Labor Board Cites Hospital For Infringing On Nurses’ Rights During Ballot Campaign
Before last November’s election, as the debate over a ballot question to regulate nurse staffing intensified, several members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association wanted to display their support by wearing “Yes on 1” pins. But hospital executives who strongly opposed the ballot measure known as Question 1 sometimes intimidated nurses who expressed their support this way, according to the nurses union. (Dayal McCluskey, 3/14)

Modern Healthcare: Providence St. Joseph's Operating Income Hit By $162M Restructuring
Providence St. Joseph Health's effort to streamline operations and improve productivity systemwide is not coming cheap—in fact, the restructuring shrunk its operating income last year. The Renton, Wash.-based health system drew just $3 million in operating income last year on $24.4 billion in total operating revenue. Excluding those asset impairment, severance and consulting costs, the system said its 2018 operating income would have been $165 million. The restructuring costs are being spread across 2018 and 2019. (Bannow, 3/14)

Kansas City Star: Children’s Mercy CEO Kempinski Wants To Protect Patient Info
After several security breaches exposed the data of tens of thousands of patients at Children’s Mercy Hospital, its new CEO is making changes to better protect medical information. ...Kempinski said O’Donnell’s 25-year tenure had clearly taken Children’s Mercy “to new levels” and it was on its way to becoming one of the top five children’s hospitals in the country, in terms of research and clinical care. (Marso, 3/14)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Atlanta Medical Group CEO, COO Sentenced To Prison For $8.5M Scheme
The chief executive officer and the chief operating officer of a defunct Atlanta medical group were sentenced to prison Thursday after being convicted of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and aggravated identity theft. Shailesh Kothari, who also goes by Shue Kothari, was the CEO of Atlanta-based Primera Medical Group, Inc., and he was sentenced alongside his former COO Timothy McMenamin, U.S. Attorney Byung J. “BJay” Pak said in a news release. (Hansen, 3/14)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Ohio Must Ensure Equal Mental Health Access For All Racial, Ethnic Groups
A Gov. Mike DeWine-appointed group released a report Thursday afternoon with 75 recommendations on how to improve mental health and addiction treatment and prevention. The RecoveryOhio Advisory Council was made up of people who work in the mental health and addiction fields, state agency leaders and law enforcement officers. (Hancock, 3/14)

Medpage Today: Doddering Doctors: Hospitals Take A Stab At Weeding Them Out
Interventional cardiologist Jerrold Glassman, MD, spent the first week of March schussing down Park City's powdery slopes. He even braved black diamond runs, belying the fact that this July, he'll be 69 years old. "A 60-year-old today is not the 60-year-old of three decades ago," he said proudly. "Skiing is my passion and I'm going back up tomorrow." He and his ski buddies, older physicians like himself, dodge moguls some 30 days a year. A new app tracks his stats, like altitude, speed and distance, and said he did 25 downhill miles that day. (Clark, 3/14)

Modern Healthcare: CHS Accused Of Making False Claims About EHR Tech
A whistleblower accused Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Systems of submitting hundreds of millions of dollars in false claims to HHS for federal incentive payments for meaningfully using electronic health records. The lawsuit, unsealed by a federal court in Miami on Thursday, claimed that CHS made it a priority for its hospitals to submit attestations for incentive payments because they were an important source of revenue for the system. The two whistleblowers, who worked for CHS as recently as December 2016, allege the for-profit system received more than $450 million in EHR incentive payments between 2012 and 2015. (Livingston, 3/14)

WBUR: Group Of Civilly Committed Men Sues Mass. Alleging Gender Discrimination In 'Section 35' Law
The lawsuit filed by 10 men civilly committed to Massachusetts Alcohol and Substance Abuse Center (MASAC), a minimum security prison in Plymouth, alleges that because the state no longer allows women to be involuntarily committed to prisons for addiction treatment, it should not do so for men, either. MASAC is overseen by the Massachusetts Department of Correction. (Becker, 3/14)

The Oregonian: Providence Launches Heart Transplant Program With $75 Million From Phil Knight, As OHSU Announces Restart Of Its Own 
Two giants of Oregon health care are set on a collision course as they both attempt to revive their heart transplant programs. Providence Health & Services announced on Thursday it intends to have its transplant unit up and running in six months to a year. In the middle of Providence’s press conference, Oregon Health & Sciences University went public with its own plan to restart a transplant unit, after it abruptly shut it down in August. (Manning, 3/14)

Sacramento Bee: Pain Clinic Settles For $860,000 In Alleged Medi-Cal Fraud
A Sacramento area pain management clinic made an $860,000 settlement to resolve allegations of submitting fraudulent Medi-Cal reimbursement claims.Advanced Pain Diagnostic & Solutions Inc. and its owner, Dr. Kayvan Haddadan, were accused of knowingly submitting claims to the state Medicaid program for a service provider who was excluded from Medi-Cal coverage, according to a news release issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California. (Moleski, 3/14)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Cuyahoga County Justified Not Raising Wages For Jail Nurses With Study That Only Looked At Entry-Level Pay
One question arising from health-care problems at the Cuyahoga County jails is why the administration of County Executive Armond Budish did not raise wages for jail nurses last spring after saying it had set aside money to do so. Cleveland.com recently posed that question to the county as part of its ongoing coverage of problems at the jails, where eight jail inmates died last year and where the U.S. Marshals Service found evidence of “inhumane” treatment of the people behind bars, including a lack of adequate health care. (Astolfi, 3/15)

Detroit Free Press: Oakland County Measles Case: What To Know About Exposure, Symptoms
Michigan health officials have confirmed that a traveler from Israel who was infected with the measles may have spread the virus while visiting Oakland County March 6-13. The traveler, who visited businesses, a religious institution and a synagogue, also traveled to New York, which is in the midst of its worst measles outbreak in decades. Measles are spreading nationally, too. In all, 228 measles cases in 12 states have been reported from the start of the year through March 7, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Shamus, 3/14)