By ROBIN FIELDS & MAYA MILLER
ProPublica/Co-published with The Capitol Forum

In a victory for many cancer patients in Michigan, the state’s top insurance regulator told health plans last month that they cannot deny coverage for clinically proven cancer treatments, and she made it clear for the first time that this includes cutting-edge genetic and biologic therapies.

The move follows weeks of questions from ProPublica and pressure from state lawmakers after the news organization reported in November that an insurer there refused to pay for the only treatment that could save the life of Forrest VanPatten, a 50-year-old father of two, even though a state law requires insurers to pay for proven cancer drugs.

Internal [Read More]

By SUSAN ADELMAN, MD
We all have heard that Tik Tok should be banned, but usually for political reasons. Few in the medical community realize the medical and public health dangers that kids are exposed to when they go on this platform. Along with alluring dance routines are enticing challenges to do completely ridiculous, unbelievably dangerous pranks—dangerous to the self and to others. Does anyone older than a teenager know what these challenges are? Let us go through some of them.

One is so dangerous and has caused so many deaths that Tik Tok has put up a warning message on their platform – the Blackout Challenge.  In this one, the child [Read More]

By: Jesse Adam Markos, Esq.
Wachler & Associates, P.C

Michigan is currently facing a shortage of healthcare providers that has escalated to unprecedented levels.  In response, Michigan’s Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (“LARA”) has taken steps to enhance efforts to recruit and retain providers.  One such step is the formation of a task force to identify obstacles that prevent Foreign Trained Medical Professionals (“FTMPs”) from practicing in Michigan and to create recommendations to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the licensing process.  The resulting Michigan Task Force on Foreign Trained Medical Professional Licensing (“Task Force”) has done just that in its recently released Final Report.

As background, the Task Force was created [Read More]

By SETH WAXMAN
Dickinson Wright

The United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and state law enforcement agencies have robust teams investigating and prosecuting health care fraud. Law enforcement often uses advanced data analytics and algorithmic methods to identify newly emerging health care fraud schemes. DOJ also employs nine regional strike forces located throughout the country to bring together groups of prosecutors, FBI agents, and key administrative agencies to combat health care fraud. Critical time will be lost, and important steps may be missed if an organization waits until an investigation is underway to decide how to respond to a government investigation.

6 Steps for Responding to a Search Warrant

1. Company policy

Health care [Read More]

Lansing Lines is presented in cooperation with MIRS, a Lansing-based news and information service.

Abortion Provider, Student Group Challenge Access Restrictions

A Michigan abortion provider and a pro-abortion rights student group filed a Michigan Court of Claims case challenging three abortion restrictions, including Michigan’s 24-hour waiting period.

Northland Family Planning Centers and Medical Students for Choice also challenge the dissemination of certain information to a patient before an abortion and prohibitions on the ability of advanced practice clinicians to perform abortions, according to the lawsuit filed recently.

“Through the RFFA, Michigan voters overwhelmingly declared that they will not tolerate paternalistic and medically baseless restrictions on abortion like those we are challenging in this [Read More]

By JULIE APPLEBY
It’s winter, that cozy season that brings crackling fireplaces, indoor gatherings — and a wave of respiratory illness. Nearly four years since the pandemic emerged, people are growing weary of dealing with it, but the virus is not done with us.

Nationally, a sharp uptick in emergency room visits and hospitalizations for COVID-19, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, began in mid-December and appears to be gaining momentum.

Here are a few things to know this time around:

What’s Circulating Now?

The COVID virus is continually changing, and a recent version is rapidly climbing the charts. Even though it appeared only in September, the variant known as JN.1, a descendant of [Read More]

As of Dec. 2, Michigan was trailing behind last year’s administered flu shot numbers by more than 10 percent, which is a setback that’s caught the attention of the Michigan State Medical Society.

“The biggest risk would be to have a very severe flu season, with many severe illnesses requiring (hospitalization),” said Dr. M. Salim Siddiqui, MSMS president. “I think we all have a sense of what happens when our hospitals get overwhelmed by respiratory illness. For older patients and younger patients, there (would) be (concerns) about severe permanent complications and even death.”

During a recent roundtable discussion, lasting around 20 minutes, Siddiqui described the influenza vaccine as a way to avoid respiratory [Read More]

By PAUL NATINSKY
Until recently, I never gave much serious thought to mental health. As a member of that latch-key, seat-beltless, hose-hydrating generation born in the late ‘60s, I thought of mental health as a refuge of the weak and excuse-seeking. Worse, at times I thought of those with severe mental health issues as hopeless institution dwellers beyond the help of healthcare professionals. Even as I gained experience as a healthcare reporter and health policy professional in the state legislature, I hated working on mental health issues.

That’s a tough truth to admit to for a healthcare publication editor and I’ll probably pay a price for that. But it is important to [Read More]

By SUSAN ADELMAN, MD
Since the beginning of the COVID epidemic, most physicians have been struggling to do the right thing when it comes to treatment and prevention. Part of this was because, in the beginning, a terrifying complex of symptoms hit our patients fast, with high lethality, high transmissibility and distressing urgency. We worked hard, under pressure, to diagnose, to figure out immediate treatments, to devise prevention strategies, to understand new vaccines, and, eventually, boosters. Now we have a great deal of information, but most of us in the medical profession still are hard-pressed to be confident in our recommendations about vaccines and boosters for all age groups. Meanwhile, some politicians, [Read More]

By EWA MATUSZEWSKI
When a practicing physician dies, there is not only intense grief, but an entire gamut of professional details that require immediate attention. I recently faced this personal challenge and was admittedly adrift in confronting first and subsequent steps. Perhaps I should have known them already—but some of the medical associations and health plans I reached out to didn’t either. The question? Where is the checklist to guide me through the “un-credentialing” of a physician?

With the risk of identity theft high, it is imperative that no enterprising thief access physician credentials for nefarious purposes. Here is what I learned by creating my own checklist for steps that must be [Read More]