Medicaid Request Approvals Take 99 Days In Missouri

KCUR: Missouri Takes 99 Days On Average To Approve Medicaid Requests
To many in Kansas City, Kimberly Johnson is known as a listener. As a beautician and a church member, people came to her with troubles, and she provided a sympathetic ear. But painful arthritis forced Johnson, who’s 53, into early retirement from her job. Today, she needs physical therapy to stay active, but it costs so much, she often often has to go without. “It can be difficult,” Johnson said. “Like now, it's cold outside, and with my arthritis, I can’t get around as much, or really out the bed.” (Smith, 3/9)

In other updates from across the U.S. —

Las Vegas Review-Journal: Meningitis Vaccination Required For 12th Graders In Nevada
Nevada students entering the 12th grade will be required to be vaccinated against meningitis before the next school year begins. The new requirement for the meningococcal vaccine, approved by the State Board of Health as a state regulation, applies to all public, private and charter schools in Nevada. For most students, this means they’ll need a booster dose, as they likely received a first dose at age 11 to 12, according to the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services. (Hynes, 3/8)

Mississippi Clarion Ledger: State Health Officer Thomas Dobbs To Resign In July
Mississippi State Health Officer Thomas Dobbs announced Tuesday that he will resign his position at the end of July. Dobbs has been with the Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) since 2008 fulfilling multiple roles including district health officer, state epidemiologist, and deputy state health officer. During the last two years, he led the state's public health campaign to combat the coronavirus pandemic. In a press release issued by the health department, Dobbs said he wants to step back into academia and teach healthcare professionals about public health and infectious disease. (Clark, 3/8)

New Hampshire Public Radio: Two N.H. Mental Health Programs Prepare To Reopen After Staffing Shortages Caused A Temporary Closure
Next week, residential mental health programs in Northwood and Manchester will reopen, after staffing shortages left them unable to keep running this winter. “In a short window of time, we lost almost half our staff…[we lost] four people,” said Samantha Captain, the residential program co-director at On the Road to Wellness in Manchester. Step Up Step Down, the program Captain helps oversee, offers three Granite Staters a 90-day stay with daily mental health support. Like the name, residents can “step up” into the program while managing mental health challenges, or “step down” from an intensive care setting like a psychiatric hospital. It’s a part of the state’s push to improve mental health care, and reduce the acuity of the crisis in emergency rooms across New Hampshire. (Fam, 3/8)

Kansas City Star: Kansas May Stiffen Penalties For Attacks On Health Workers
In May 2019 Sarah Evans Simpson, a Kansas emergency room nurse, volunteered to sit with an agitated patient. The patient hit Simpson so hard her glasses were broken and she worked the final four hours of her shift with a concussion. She missed three months of work with a head injury. When Simpson returned, she learned that prosecutors had dropped the case after initially pressing charges. Her story is not unusual. In hospitals across Kansas and the United States, violence against healthcare workers is commonplace, on the rise and often unreported. Prosecutors won’t pursue the cases and workers worry about future interactions with those patients, administrators say. (Bernard, 3/9)

North Carolina Health News: NC Pilot To Tackle Social Determinants Of Health Begins 
For years, staff at Hunger and Health in Watauga County have distributed food for free to families in need. “We’re the largest food pantry and the only free pharmacy in Watauga County,” said Ben Loomis, the grants and program manager at the organization. They also serve nearby Ashe and Avery counties, offering people in these rural communities phone consultations with a registered dietitian and support building out their nutrition profile and a healthy food plan. Starting March 15, Hunger and Health — along with more than 90 other organizations throughout 33 western and eastern North Carolina counties — will begin scaling up their work and getting reimbursed for parts of it when the state officially rolls out the Healthy Opportunities Pilot: a first-in-the-nation project which hypothesizes that if we use health care dollars to pay for non-medical health-related services, medical costs will fall and people’s overall health will rise. (Donnelly-DeRoven, 3/9)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: ‘A Defining Issue’: Georgia House Approves Measure Overhauling Mental Health Care
The Georgia House gave bipartisan approval to a bill Tuesday that aims to overhaul the way mental health care is accessed in the state, requiring providers to cover the ailment the same way they do for physical illnesses and conditions. House Bill 1013, sponsored by House Speaker David Ralston, a Blue Ridge Republican, would require insurance companies to cover mental health care the same way they cover physical health, establish state grants for outpatient treatment and take other steps to improve care. The bill passed 169-3, with Republican state Reps. Charlice Byrd of Woodstock, Sheri Gilligan of Cumming and Philip Singleton of Sharpsburg the only votes in opposition. (Prabhu, 3/8)

Salt Lake Tribune: Lawmakers Vote Down Bill Updating How Health Education Is Taught In Utah On Final Day Of Session
Despite receiving more support this session, Rep. Carol Spackman Moss’s latest attempt to update how health education is taught in Utah schools was killed on the final night of the Legislature, without any debate. “This is just really important information, and I don’t understand the reluctance,” Moss, D-Holladay, told The Salt Lake Tribune on Monday. Moss ran a similar bill last year, which never made it out of the House, even after she agreed to remove a section about teaching about consent — which spurred much of the debate over the bill — in an effort to find a compromise. In her bill this year, HB274, Moss did not include the word consent, except to say that parents would have to opt in to allow their child learn what she was proposing. (Jacobs, 3/8)