Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Supreme Court Nixes Hospitals' Attempt To Change DSH Payouts
Modern Healthcare: Supreme Court Sides With HHS, Not Hospitals, In DSH Payment Case
The Supreme Court on Friday dealt a blow to safety-net hospitals' Medicare rate calculation. The high court resolved a years-long fight between the Health and Human Services Department and the hospital industry by ruling the agency appropriately interpreted Medicare law when it changed a formula for calculating safety-net payments in 2005. Hospitals won't lose money from the ruling, but they also won't gain extra funds they argued they're entitled to, said Allison Hoffman, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. (Goldman, 6/24)
In other health care industry news —
Stat: Vertus Hardiman And The Medical Tragedies That Must Not Be Forgetten
Vertus Hardiman wore a wig for more than 70 years. His hair piece concealed a painful secret: a head ravaged by a raw, open wound that was eating through his scalp and skull. As a child, Hardiman was a victim of irresponsible medical practices that left him with physical and psychological scars for the rest of his life. It was 1927 and Vertus, then age 5, had a case of ringworm, a fungal infection that affects the skin. He and nine other Black children from the close-knit community of Lyles Station, Indiana, were taken for treatment to a nearby hospital. The treatment they received was high-dose radiation. The children’s parents had no idea that signing the permission slips for the hospital visit would lead to their kids being irradiated. (St. Fleur, 6/27)
Stat: Cue Health Rode Covid To A $3 Billion Valuation. Now It Faces A Rocky Future
It didn’t have the brand recognition of Abbott, or the billions of the medical technology multinational Becton Dickinson. Before the pandemic hit, Cue Health didn’t even have a product on the market. What the fledgling company did have in July 2020 was a deal to provide its newly authorized Covid-19 test for the National Basketball Association’s highly publicized bubble. With the imprimatur of the NBA, Cue rocketed from startup obscurity to primetime fame. (Palmer, 6/27)
KHN: His-And-Hers Cataract Surgeries, But His Bill Was 20 Times As Much
Danilo Manimtim’s vision was cloudy and blurred — and it was growing worse. The 73-year-old retired orthopedic surgeon in Fresno, California, knew it was time for cataract surgery. “It’s like car tires wearing out because you drive on them so much,” he said. In December 2021, he went to the outpatient department of the local hospital to undergo the common procedure that usually replaces the natural eye lens with an artificial one and is designed to restore vision. The outpatient procedure went smoothly, and Manimtim healed over the next few weeks. (Hart, 6/27)
KHN: Journalists Investigate Private Equity, Medical Debt, And Mental Health Care
KHN senior correspondent Sarah Jane Tribble examined how private equity hijacks health care, reporting on rural hospital closures in Missouri, on KBIA’s “All Things Considered” on June 23. ... KHN senior Colorado correspondent Markian Hawryluk also discussed private equity, along with power wheelchairs and Colorado’s “right to repair” law, on “Texas Standard” on June 22. (6/25)
