State Highlights: Study Finds Nearly $2B In Minn. ER Visits Could Have Been Avoided; Georgia Survey Notes Gap In Rural Health

Minnesota Public Radio: Nearly $2 Billion In ER Visits And Hospital Care Preventable
More than 1 million emergency room visits and more than 70,000 of hospital admissions in Minnesota possibly could have been prevented, according to a new Minnesota Department of Health Study. (Zdechlik, 7/23)

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune: Minnesota Tallies $2 Billion In Wasted Hospital Spending
Minnesotans receive as much as $2 billion in hospital care a year that could be avoided, according to a new analysis that also estimates two of every three emergency room visits in the state are potentially preventable. (Olson, 7/23)

Georgia Health News: Poll Finds Big Gaps In Rural Health Care
Most rural Georgia residents in a new survey say they have experienced problems with the affordability of health insurance and the cost of health care. When asked the biggest problem facing local health care, 68 percent named cost, with quality of care and access to care trailing far behind, according to the survey of 491 people. It was conducted by Opinion Savvy and commissioned by Healthcare Georgia Foundation. (Miller, 7/22)

The Kansas Health Institute News Service: Federal Investigation Of Kansas Medicaid Waiting Lists Ongoing
A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice said Tuesday that the department is still investigating complaints about Medicaid waiting lists for disability services in Kansas. The services are daily living supports in home and community-based settings that people with disabilities would normally receive Medicaid coverage for if they were in assisted living facilities. In 2012, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which partners with states to administer Medicaid, referred complaints about long waits for the services in Kansas to the Justice Department, the legal arm of the federal government. (Marso, 7/22)

The Kansas Health Institute News Service: Incendiary Lawsuit Over KanCare Company's Practices Dismissed
A federal whistleblower lawsuit alleging that one of the companies running KanCare ordered employees to shift KanCare patients away from high-cost health care providers has been dismissed. A one-sentence document filed Tuesday in federal court in Kansas City, Kan., said that the plaintiff, Jacqueline Leary, and the defendants — Sunflower State Health Plan Inc., its parent company Centene Corp. and three other parties — had stipulated to the dismissal. Each party was to bear its own costs and attorneys’ fees. (Margolies, 7/22)

The Des Moines Register: Registry Aims To Ease Search For Mental Health Care
Mental health system leaders hope a new computerized registry of psychiatric beds will make what happened to Cynthia Shouse a bit less common. Shouse, 22, recalls spending more than two days in a Cedar Rapids emergency department, suffering a mental health crisis a few years ago. The staff determined that Shouse, who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, should be admitted to a psychiatric unit. But their unit was full, as usual, and their repeated calls to other hospitals couldn't locate any openings. (Leys, 7/22)

Stateline: No Escaping Medical Copayments, Even In Prison
Even going to prison doesn’t spare patients from having to pay medical copays. In response to the rapidly rising cost of providing health care, states are increasingly authorizing the collection of fees from prisoners for medical services they receive while in state prisons or local jails. At least 38 states now do it, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law and Stateline reporting. The fees are typically small, $20 or less. And states must waive them when a prisoner is unable to pay but still needs care, in keeping with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that prisoners have a constitutional right to “adequate” health care. (Ollove, 7/22)

Reuters: More Retirees Flock To U.S. States For Legal Pot
When choosing retirement locales, a few factors pop to mind: climate, amenities, proximity to grandchildren, access to quality healthcare. Chris Cooper had something else to consider - marijuana laws. The investment adviser from Toledo had long struggled with back pain due to a fractured vertebra and crushed disc from a fall. He hated powerful prescription drugs like Vicodin, but one thing did help ease the pain and spasms: marijuana. (Taylor, 7/22)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. County Task Force Suggests Ways To Divert Mentally Ill From Jails
Cutting the number of mentally ill inmates in Los Angeles County's jail system would require spending tens of millions of dollars on new treatment facilities and housing for offenders who would otherwise be released into homelessness, a long-awaited report concludes. A task force of public officials and mental health advocates convened by Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey issued the report after spending more than a year studying how to divert mentally ill people from the criminal justice system. (Sewell and Gerber, 7/23)

The Seattle Times: King County Council Puts Comprehensive Children's Health Program To The Voters
King County could be one of the nation’s first metropolitan areas to adopt a wide-reaching plan to curb public-health problems through services for pregnant women, infants and children. Voters in November will decide on a proposal to raise property taxes to boost aid for early intervention programs, following the Metropolitan King County Council’s vote of approval on Wednesday. (Lee, 7/22)

The Seattle Times: State Appeals Order To Pay $1.3M In Competency Case
Washington state health officials are appealing a federal court order to pay $1.3 million in attorney’s fees to lawyers of mentally ill defendants who sued the state for warehousing them in jails. U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman ruled in April that the state was violating the constitutional rights “of its most vulnerable citizens” by forcing them to wait for weeks or months in jails for competency services. (7/22)

The Detroit Free Press: Metro Detroit Battles Its Latest Scourge: Heroin
Law enforcement agencies said Tuesday they are stepping up efforts to stop a surge of heroin sales by dealers in Detroit’s Woodward Corridor mainly to suburban customers, many of them from Oakland County. In Pontiac, Oakland County officials announced they are launching several initiatives aimed at stemming the supply of prescription pain relievers, whose addictive lure is widely thought to underlie southeast Michigan’s spiraling problem with heroin. Countless abusers of the pain pills ultimately turn to stronger, cheaper heroin, said officials on both sides of 8 Mile Road. (Allen and Laitner, 7/22)

Politico Pro: North Dakota’s Six-Week Abortion Ban Struck
A federal appeals court has struck down the earliest state ban on abortion in the country, a move that could invite the Supreme Court to weigh in on one of the nation’s most controversial social issues in the middle of a presidential election year. (Haberkorn, 7/22)

The Richmond Times-Dispatch: Area Hospitals Deploy Room-Disinfecting Robots
Three Bon Secours locations — St. Mary’s Hospital, St. Francis Medical Center and Memorial Regional Medical Center — and the VCU Medical Center are using TRU-D to disinfect rooms using ultraviolet radiation technology. When humans clean an operating room, they eliminate only about 50 percent of surface bacteria, according to Khiet Trinh, chief medical officer at St. Mary’s, which purchased one TRU-D system in 2013 and another last year. The TRU-D system is placed in a room after hospital employees manually wipe and scrub surfaces. It scans the room’s dimensions and bacteria concentration and emits UV light which eliminates 99.99 percent of bacteria, according to Trinh and TRU-D SmartUVC President Chuck Dunn. (McQuilkin, 7/22)

Kaiser Health News: How Vandalism And Fear Ended Abortion In Northwest Montana
There has never been a welcome mat for abortion service providers in the Flathead Valley, a vast area that stretches over 5,000 square miles in the northwest corner of Montana. Susan Cahill began providing abortions in 1976 in the first clinic to offer the service in the Flathead. (Cates-Carney, 7/23)

The Associated Press: Democrats Propose Bills To Prevent Unintended Pregnancies
Democratic lawmakers are proposing legislation they say is aimed at preventing unintended pregnancies in Michigan. Bills unveiled Wednesday in the Republican-controlled state Capitol would require employers to inform workers and job applicants about reproductive health care coverage. Other measures would require the state to distribute information about emergency contraception and health facilities to make emergency contraception available to rape victims. (7/22)

Reuters: Mail-Order Pharmacy Accused Of Medicare Advantage Scam
A former compliance officer for Georgia-based Primrose Pharmacy has accused it of operating a multistate scheme to defraud the Medicare Advantage program by billing for diabetes testing supplies that patients never ordered. In a False Claims Act lawsuit unsealed on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, Rosa Siler said Primrose, a mail-order pharmacy operating in 31 states and specializing in diabetes testing supplies, and consulting firm Diabetic Pharmacy Solutions, tricked the patients and doctors with the help of "lead generators" - outside sources that supplied patients' names, medical information, doctors, insurance providers and sometimes Social Security numbers. (Grzincic, 7/22)