State Highlights: Street Medicine Team In Atlanta Hits Roads, Bridges To Find Homeless; Nonprofit Helps Underserved Patients ‘Across Whole U.S.’ Not Just Appalachia

Atlanta Journal Constitution: Atlanta Street Team Offers Medical Care, Hope And No Judgment
As a part of Mercy Care’s small but determined Street Medicine team, they venture into some of Atlanta’s grittiest environs, to engage with the homeless men and women least likely to seek help. They apply antibiotic ointment to cuts, wrap up sprains and treat chronic conditions like high blood pressure. While they’re there, they also provide referrals and assistance with the not-so-simple first steps of finding housing and employment, like securing birth certificates and Social Security cards and getting identification with no permanent address. (Oliviero, 9/6)

The Washington Post: With Or Without Insurance, People Come For Free Medical And Dental Care In Baltimore 
As the sun rose Saturday, Delores Connolly stood in line outside a public school here clutching a numbered ticket. Connolly, 61, who has health insurance, was waiting to enter a clinic offering free medical and dental care. “She’s playing with me now,” Connolly said, fidgeting as a uniformed woman at the entrance to Pimlico Elementary/Middle School repeatedly called out No. 92, in English and Spanish. Connolly was No. 93. Dental care was dropped from her Medicaid coverage this year, Connolly said, and her plan would not cover eyeglasses to replace a pair she had lost. She had queued up at 5:30 a.m. at a temporary clinic operated in Baltimore over the weekend by the nonprofit Remote Area Medical (RAM). (Jamison, 9/7)

The Associated Press: Experts: St. Louis Kids Feeling Impact Of All The Violence
Experts say the violence in St. Louis, including the recent killings of 12 children, is traumatizing the city's youngest residents. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that about 300 people turned out Thursday for a meeting at Vashon High School that was called after a recent rash of killings that included the deaths of an 8-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy. (9/6)

Modern Healthcare: California Governor Signs New Transparency Law For Kaiser
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday approved new transparency requirements for the state's dominant health system, Kaiser Permanente. It's a major win for a prominent health workers union that sponsored the bill amid an ongoing fight with the health system. Each of Kaiser's 35 California facilities will need to disclose its profits and its insurance arm will need to publish the reasons for any planned rate increases. (Luthi, 9/6)

Sacramento Bee: New California Law Requires Greater Transparency From Kaiser
“We think it’s an important transparency measure,” said Anthony Wright, the executive director of Health Access California. “Right now, we do require rate review of our insurers, and Kaiser has had a fairly broad exemption from much of the rate review processes that other insurers have to follow, and what this bill does is fairly simple. It ensures Kaiser is providing the same types of information justifying their rates as other health insurers have to do.” (Anderson, 9/6)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Report To Governor: Georgia Faces Health Care Challenges
Georgia has worse access to health care than most states, such as available doctors and mental health care providers. In one recent year, 17% of Georgians said they needed to see a doctor in the past 12 months but couldn’t because of cost. (Hart, 9/6)

The Star Tribune: Can A New Leader Calm The Turmoil At Minnesota DHS?
Taking the helm at Minnesota’s sprawling Department of Human Services, Jodi Harpstead brings long experience in managing large organizations that Gov. Tim Walz hopes will provide stability and focus to a struggling agency. Since July, the Department of Human Services (DHS) has been roiled by an unusual series of resignations in top leadership, revelations of nearly $80 million in payment mistakes and allegations of retaliation against internal whistleblowers. (Howatt, 9/7)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Cuyahoga County Jail Conditions Are Much Better, But Many Challenges Remain, Says American Correctional Association
Key improvements have been made to Cuyahoga County jail operations this year to address crowding, security issues and abysmal conditions, says a consultant’s report released Friday, but county officials still have a long list of challenges to overcome. A dozen county officials, including County Executive Armond Budish and jail leadership, met with cleveland.com Thursday to discuss a long list of changes they have made or are making in the troubled jail. But the group acknowledged that much work lies ahead and progress, in some cases, will continue to be slow. (Astolfi, 9/6)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Chiropractors Sue Ohio Over Budget Provision Barring Immediate Contact With Motorists Involved In Car Crashes
Several Ohio chiropractors filed a federal lawsuit against the state seeking to block a law passed as part of the 2020-2021 budget that restricts their ability to solicit clients in the immediate aftermath of a car crash or crime. The budget state lawmakers passed in July included a provision that affects health care practitioners and referral companies that send solicitations to people involved in car crashes, or who are a victim or witness to a crime. It bars them from directly reaching out to those people in person, by phone or electronically until 30 days after the incident. (Heisig, 9/6)

Los Angeles Times: Homeless Housing Proposal In Echo Park: Is It 'Trumpian?'
Battles over where to build housing or shelters for homeless people are nothing new at Los Angeles City Hall, which has witnessed an uproar over such plans from Koreatown to Venice. But the latest fight is poised to split the City Council itself, as one councilman promotes a plan that another is denouncing as “Trumpian.” (Reyes, 9/8)

Sacramento Bee: Homeless Move Into New Downtown Sacramento CA Shelter
Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency and Volunteers of America staff have moved the ten people into newly-cleaned rooms on the sixth floor of the historic hotel at the corner of Ninth and L streets. The rooms include two new twin beds each, dressers, and nightstands. Several toilets and faucets have been replaced and rooms were sprayed for bedbugs. (Clift, 9/6)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin Veterans Chamber Of Commerce Helping Count Vets In Census
The Wisconsin Veterans Chamber of Commerce is organizing an effort to count veterans and military members and their families in the 2020 census.Veterans are among the "hard-to-count" groups for the once-a-decade U.S. Census. It's important to count veterans so programs ranging from VA home loans and G.I. Bill educational benefits to job training and VA health care are properly funded. (Jones, 9/6)

Sacramento Bee: CA State Attorneys, Aljs Get Health Care Perk In Contract
About 4,000 more California state workers will be eligible for monthly stipends to cover their health insurance premiums under a tentative contract agreement with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration. The benefit appears in a new agreement between the administration and California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment. CalHR posted the agreement to its website Thursday. (Venteicher, 9/6)

Arizona Republic: Inmate Attorneys Ask Feds To Oversee Health Care In Arizona Prisons
Lawyers representing Arizona inmates want the federal government to oversee the state's inmate health care system, saying Arizona officials have failed incarcerated men and women for years. Inmates and their families filed a class action lawsuit, Parsons v. Ryan, against the Arizona Department of Corrections in 2012, alleging inadequate medical, health and dental care. A settlement was reached in 2014, requiring the department to comply with a number of performance measures. (Castle, 9/6)

The Oregonian: In Oregon, Academic Pressures, Existential Fears Help Explain Rising Rates Of Suicide, Mental Health Conditions 
Mental wellness is individualized. No one factor or discrete set of factors causes youth to feel like ending their lives. But people in Oregon and around the nation with direct experience in youth mental health cite three high-level drivers behind the rise in young people hit by depression, anxiety and other mental health challenges: increased academic pressure, the rise of social media and existential fears stemming from school shootings, climate change and other horrors that have colored their childhoods. (Chaffin, 9/8)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Independent Labs May Be Less Expensive, But Are They The Best Option For You?
It may be cheaper to have routine outpatient medical and imaging tests done at an independent lab. But whether that is the best option depends on several factors, including convenience, your insurance plan and whether specialty follow-up care is needed. (Washington, 9/8)

The Acadiana Advocate: Austin-Based Health Care Company To Make Lafayette Its Training Hub
Texas-based Arise Vascular will make its Lafayette branch its flagship location and designate it as its training hub, which will bring 60-240 people to the city each year. Co-founder and CEO Jared Leger announced the move Thursday. Chris Hebert, a local registered cardiovascular invasive specialist, will lead the facility. He has trained more than 2,000 physicians and 400 ancillary health care providers over his 53-year career. (Boudreaux, 9/6)

Pioneer Press: ‘An Insult To Child Development’: MN Prisons Mull Alternatives To Incarceration For Pregnant Women 
Now, state corrections officials are mulling alternatives to incarceration that could keep mothers and their young children together. The talks have been driven by years of pressure from advocates and a growing body of research that shows separation can have a lasting impact on children who are not guilty of their mother’s crimes. ...State Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell said the agency is looking at alternative release options for pregnant women and mothers of young children. The department is working with advocates to craft a proposal that could be brought to the governor and Legislature next year, he said. (Faircloth, 9/8)

State House News Service: Baker Seeking Big Outlay To Address Water Contaminant
A supplemental spending bill Governor Charlie Baker planned to file on Friday will include millions of dollars in new money to help cities and towns test for and treat certain chemical contaminants in their drinking water. The family of chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, have been detected at levels above Department of Environmental Protection guidelines in public water supplies in Ayer, Barnstable, Harvard, Hudson, Mashpee, Middleton, Shirley, and Westfield, according to the DEP. (Lannan, 9/6)

Georgia Health News: Sterilizing Plant Shutting Down As Air Tests Begin; Lawsuit Challenges EPD Deal
A medical sterilization facility in metro Atlanta is shutting down operations until October as it undergoes construction to reduce emissions of a toxic gas. Sterigenics said Friday that a September shutdown will expedite the improvements that the company has promised state officials that it will make to reduce ethylene oxide pollution. The move comes as a coalition of the Cobb County, Smyrna and Atlanta governments has installed monitors around the Smyrna plant to begin testing airborne levels of ethylene oxide, a cancer-causing chemical released during the sterilization process. (Goodman and Miller, 9/6)