American Academy Of Pediatrics Under Investigation Over Trans Youth Care

Bloomberg: FTC Targets Medical Nonprofits In Trans Kids’ Health Probe
Federal enforcers have opened a consumer protection probe into the American Academy of Pediatrics and the leading professional association focused on transgender health care, adding to the Trump administration’s scrutiny of youth trans medical care. The Federal Trade Commission sent legal demands on Jan. 15 seeking documents and testimony to the American Academy of Pediatrics — a nonprofit organization focused on kids’ health — and the World Professional Association of Transgender Health, a nonprofit known as WPATH. (Nylen, 2/10)

In related news about gender care —

The Texas Tribune: Texans Born Without Traditional Sex Traits Worry New Law Will Force Them To Choose A Gender They Don’t Identify With
Aside from a hole in his heart that surgery fixed early in his life, Mo Cortez didn’t have any notable medical complications growing up in San Angelo. By all accounts, he was a normal, healthy kid. But on July 20, 1989, a five-year-old Cortez awoke on a hospital table, forever interrupting his comfortably mundane life. (Johnstone, 2/11)

More health care industry developments —

Modern Healthcare: Memorial Hermann Offers Voluntary Buyouts To Cut Operating Costs
Memorial Hermann Health System is offering voluntary severance to some employees to save on operating costs and improve efficiency. Packages will be offered to eligible full-time and part-time staff in non-clinical roles, the system said in a statement Monday. Memorial Hermann did not say how many staff members would receive offers, when the buyouts would go into effect or whether layoffs are a possibility if enough employees don’t agree to voluntary severance. (DeSilva, 2/10)

Becker's Hospital Review: Amazon One Medical Launches Health Insights
Amazon One Medical has launched Health Insights, a new beta feature designed to help eligible members better understand routine blood test results through personalized analysis and recommendations. Available at no additional cost through the One Medical mobile app, Health Insights analyzes more than 50 biomarkers from standard bloodwork and organizes results into health categories such as cardiovascular, metabolic and immune function. Amazon One Medical said in a Feb. 10 press release that the feature is intended to help members interpret lab results and support more informed conversations with their care teams. (Diaz, 2/10)

Chicago Tribune: Billionaire Neil Bluhm Donates $50 Million To Northwestern
Casino magnate Neil Bluhm and his family’s foundation are donating another $50 million to Northwestern Medicine to further expand and support cardiac care. The money will go toward a Northwestern cardiovascular institute that already bears Bluhm’s name: the Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute. (Schencker, 2/10)

Becker's Hospital Review: CMS Revives Nursing Home Staffing Campaign After Scrapping 24-Hour Rule
CMS has republished a Notice of Funding Opportunity related to addressing nursing home staffing challenges. The agency is again accepting applications to help fund financial incentives, such as loan repayment and stipends, to registered nurses and licensed practical nurses who work for three years in an eligible nursing home or state oversight agency. (Gregerson, 2/10)

Modern Healthcare: Hospital-At-Home Waiver Pushes Health Systems To Expand Programs
Health systems are aggressively ramping up plans for hospital-at-home programs after President Donald Trump last week approved an extension of Medicare’s Acute Hospital Care at Home waiver through September 2030. They’re aiming to launch in-home acute care programs or expand existing ones to attract a wider variety of patients or start services such as home infusion, skilled nursing and behavioral health. Companies that provide technology and other services to health systems are jockeying to cash in themselves. (Eastabrook, 2/10)

Becker's Hospital Review: AI Scribe Guidance Lags For Residents: Study
Guidance on how residents should use AI scribes is limited, even as physicians in training could benefit from the tools, according to a Feb. 10 study in Advances in Medical Education and Practice. The researchers — from Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Sidney Kimmel Medical College, both in Philadelphia — reviewed five major medical and specialty society websites and searched PubMed for residency-focused studies, finding no directives for the deployment of the technology in medical training programs. (Bruce, 2/10)

Bloomberg: Jack Ma-Backed Ant Bets On AI Health In $69 Billion Sector Race
Roughly five years ago, Ant Group Co. reined in its ambitions after a derailed initial public offering. Today, the Jack Ma-backed company is betting on a very different business to fuel its next phase of growth: health care powered by artificial intelligence. What began as a digital payments platform has become one of China’s biggest investors in medical AI, backing software that fields patient questions and connects them with doctors, pharmacies and insurers. (Yilun Chen and Tong, 2/10)

Becker's Hospital Review: The Physician Work-Pay Gap Widens 
The same financial pressures hospitals are facing are increasingly evident at the physician enterprise level, according to Kaufman Hall’s latest quarterly “Physician Flash Report,” which is based on data from more than 200,000 employed providers — physicians and advanced practice providers — across more than 100 specialties. Provider productivity continues to climb, even as reimbursement and compensation lag behind, according to the report. Provider productivity — measured by work relative value units per full-time equivalent — has increased 7% since 2023. Over the same period, provider compensation rose 6%, while reimbursement declined 1%, as measured by net patient revenue per provider wRVU. (Condon, 2/10)

Also —

AP: A Young Cancer Patient And His Family Worry As NYC Nurses' Strike Continues
When thousands of New York City nurses walked off the job last month in the city’s largest strike of its kind in decades, 9-year-old Logan Coyle was a patient in the cancer unit at NewYork-Presbyterian’s children’s hospital in Manhattan. Logan was recovering from his latest setback in a two-year battle with advanced liver cancer that has already included chemotherapy and a complex triple transplant of a liver, pancreas and small intestine. But as the nurses formed their picket outside the hospital, he walked to his window and held up a handmade sign: “Proud of My Primaries.” (Marcelo, 2/11)