State Highlights: Georgia To Join Group Of States Using ‘Heartbeat’ Bills To Get Supreme Court To Revisit Roe; North Dakota Boosts Telemedicine For Mental Health

Politico: Pushing For 'Heartbeat' Abortion Bills, More States Try To Force Supreme Court To Revisit Roe
More state lawmakers are pushing "heartbeat" bills that ban abortion as early as six weeks into pregnancy in a bid to trigger a Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Four states have enacted such prohibitions — nearly all blocked by the courts — and the number is poised to grow in the coming days, with Georgia expected to sign a bill shortly. (Pradhan, 3/27)

Stat: North Dakota Has Too Few Psychiatrists. Telemedicine Is Helping 
Until recently, when the North Dakota human services agency had an opening for a mental health provider, months might go by before a single application came in. But that’s started to change as the state boosts telemedicine as an option for mental health care. The department has started allowing providers who serve patients through its health centers to live in some of the state’s bigger cities — or even move out of state — and deliver mental health care to rural areas through video calls. The University of North Dakota’s medical school has started training its psychiatry residents to treat rural patients by computer. (Thielking, 3/28)

Tampa Bay Times: All Children’s Deaths Led To A Bill Adding Oversight. The Florida House Just Gutted It.
After Johns Hopkins All Children’s and another Florida hospital experienced serious safety problems within their pediatric heart surgery departments, state lawmakers filed proposals to increase oversight of the procedures. On Tuesday, the Florida House gutted its version of the bill. (McGrory and Bedi, 3/27)

Boston Globe: Trump Intends To Cut Family Planning Funds. Massachusetts Is Poised To Replace Them.
Massachusetts lawmakers intend to spend up to $8 million on family planning programs, replacing the federal funds the Trump administration is expected to halt in early May for health centers that discuss abortion. The House voted Wednesday to pass such a measure, and the Senate and Governor Charlie Baker are expected to approve. (Ebbert, 3/28)

The Baltimore Sun: Maryland House Of Delegates OKs Bill To Create A Prescription Drug Price Board For Government Employees 
The Maryland House of Delegates approved Wednesday a bill that would create a state board to set limits on how much state and local governments pay for medicines for their employees and retirees. The bill was approved largely along party lines on a 98-40 vote, moving the measure to the state Senate for consideration. (Wood, 3/27)

Kansas City Star: Kansas And Missouri Legislatures Mull E-Prescribing Mandate
In 2016 a University of Kansas pharmacy intern lost his license after he stole a pad from a Topeka hospital where he worked and used it to forge prescriptions for opioid pills that he used and sold. Now Kansas and Missouri lawmakers are considering a simple policy that drug stores say would prevent that type of fraud: Doing away with paper prescriptions and requiring doctors send them directly to the pharmacy electronically. (Marso, 3/28)

Modern Healthcare: Penn. Sued Over Proposal To Force Hospitals To Contract With All Plans
Broadening the stakes in a long-running battle, the Hospital Association of Pennsylvania has joined UPMC in challenging the state attorney general's effort to force UPMC to keep its provider network open to Highmark Health and other health plans. In its motion Monday to intervene in UPMC's federal lawsuit, the hospital association said Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro has proposed a plan that would potentially force all not-for-profit hospitals in the state to do business with any insurer regardless of payment or other contract terms. (Meyer, 3/27)

Miami Herald: Healthcare Priorities Move In FL House; Budget Debate Begins
Hospitals would have to provide infection rate information to patients and be required to inform them if they’ve been placed on observation status rather than admitted outright, under a handful of bills that cleared the Florida House Wednesday. The proposals, some of Speaker José Oliva’s healthcare priorities, are among those that are starting to clear the chamber as lawmakers prepare to shift from policy-making into negotiating over the state’s mammoth budget for the next fiscal year. (Koh, 3/27)

Texas Tribune: Texans Waiting For Birth, Death Certificates Amid Health Agency Understaffing
The Texas Department of State Health Services says that as of March 22, there were 60,873 requests for records, including birth certificates, death certificates, divorce records, and verifications of marriages and adoptions that the department had not yet fulfilled. That also includes requests for corrections to these records.The backlog — which stems from a longtime staffing problem and was exacerbated by the state's switch in January to a new computer system for processing records — comes as the agency vies for a boost in funding to more quickly process requests. (Evans, 3/27)

Houston Chronicle: UH To Open Safety-Net Health Clinic Monday 
The University of Houston will open a safety-net health clinic for low-income people in the area Monday, a key initial component of its planned medical school. The university is partnering with Georgetown-headquartered Lone Star Circle of Care, which already operates 19 such clinics around the state. The clinics, known as federally qualified health centers, provide health care to patients regardless of their ability to pay. (Ackerman, 3/27)

WBUR: At Prominent Roxbury Health Center, Patients Ask For Their Providers Back
Some patients at the Whittier Street Health Center, the main health center in Roxbury, are calling upon the center to rehire former health care providers that were either fired or laid off last fall during a union campaign. The providers said they formed a union to protect themselves from abusive practices by management that had driven many of their colleagues away. (Thys, 3/28)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Health Care, Drug Abuse, Jobs Are Top Concerns Among Ohio Democrats, Poll Shows
Health care is a big deal. Immigration is down the list. In between are concerns about climate change and gun policy. Those are the issues on the minds of Ohio Democrats midway between presidential elections, according to new statewide polling from Baldwin Wallace University. (Exner, 3/27)

Houston Chronicle: Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center To Layoff Or Reassign Hundreds
Nearly 600 employees have been laid off at Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center on the heels of its parent company's decision to convert the entire full-service hospital into a free-standing emergency room, according to state documents and hospital officials. The job cuts will begin May 17 and are expected to be permanent although efforts are  underway to offer those employees similar positions within the health care system, said Sean Burnett, vice president of strategic communications for HCA Houston Healthcare, in a statement on Wednesday. (Deam and Leinfelder, 3/27)

The Baltimore Sun: University Of Maryland Medical System Confronts Yet Another Controversy 
The University of Maryland Medical System board of directors has confronted one crisis after another in the past year or so, from a patient-dumping accusation at one hospital and sexual harassment in its ranks to a shooting outside its Shock Trauma emergency room. But now it’s the directors themselves who have thrown the system into distress, with nine members found to be profiting while they served in volunteer posts on the high-profile board. They or their businesses have been making hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars off the taxpayer-backed hospitals they are charged with governing. (Cohn and Marbella, 3/28)

Pioneer Press: Following Outcry, Senator Clarifies Statement That People Who Need Insulin Should Go To The ER. That’s Not What She Meant.
No one should die from rationing prescription drugs they need to live. And if you get to the point where you’re having a seizure or going into insulin shock, you should go to the emergency room. That’s what state Sen. Michelle Benson, R-Ham Lake, said she meant in public comments this week that caused outcry from some, who took her comments as insensitive and suggesting that ER visits were somehow Benson’s policy solution to skyrocketing drug costs. (Orrick and Faircloth, 3/27)

Boston Globe: Massachusetts Marijuana Regulators Investigating Whether Companies Violated License Limits
State regulators acknowledged Wednesday they have been investigating whether large marijuana companies are flouting state rules on the number of licenses that can be controlled or owned by a single entity, potentially making it harder for smaller, independent entrepreneurs to compete. The revelation by the Cannabis Control Commission comes a week after the Globe Spotlight Team reported that two major companies, Sea Hunter Therapeutics and Acreage Holdings, have publicly bragged to investors about amassing large numbers of licenses in Massachusetts — despite rules barring any one entity from owning or controlling more than three licenses to operate medical marijuana stores or three licenses for recreational stores. (Wallack and Adams, 3/28)