By REESA N. BENKOFF & DUSTIN T. WACHLER
Effective Oct. 24, 2018, the Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment for Patients and Communities Act (SUPPORT Act) aims to combat the nationwide opioid and other substance abuse crisis by improving treatment and recovery options, increasing education and prevention, safeguarding communities, and fighting deadly synthetic drugs. The SUPPORT Act is a bipartisan, wide-ranging federal law comprised of over 70 individual bills, including the Eliminating Kickbacks in Recovery Act of 2018 (EKRA). EKRA establishes a new all-payor federal anti-kickback law applicable to recovery homes, clinical treatment facilities, and laboratories. While EKRA was intended to prohibit patient brokers who profit [Read More]

While the Legislature launches into its latest look into reducing auto insurance rates, Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R-Clarklake) said he will be asking the insurance industry to come up with “creative solutions” to entice uninsured drivers to come in compliance with the state law requiring drivers to carry insurance.

In Michigan, 19 percent of drivers are tooling around uninsured, the nation’s fourth-highest rate, according to Insurance Research Council. The country’s most insured state is Maine, where 4.5 percent of drivers are uninsured.

If the insurance industry is able to reduce rates for certain populations, possibly to those burdened by a bad credit rating, it may entice more customers to buy the [Read More]

MedNetOne Health Solutions (MedNetOne), a health care management organization offering infrastructure, clinical and technology services to more than 900 private practice physicians and other independent care providers, including behavioral health specialists, has been selected by Judson Center to provide clinical oversight to its new integrated primary care clinic, Judson Center Family Health Clinic, opening February 1, 2019 in Judson Center’s Warren location.

Judson Center is a multi-county human service agency providing autism programs, behavioral health services, child and family services including foster care and adoption in tandem with its affiliate, Child Safe Michigan, and employment services for adults with developmental disabilities. The organization received nearly $700,000 in grant funding in support [Read More]

The Michigan Supreme Court agreed Jan. 23 to hear oral arguments in a lawsuit challenging whether local governments can restrict where medical marijuana caregivers can grow marijuana for medicinal purposes.

Byron Township is asking the state’s highest court to reverse a July Michigan Court of Appeals decision that held the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act (MMMA) doesn’t allow municipalities to restrict where caregivers can grow medical marijuana.

“The decision of the Court of Appeals is clearly erroneous,” wrote Grand Rapids attorney Craig Noland in the Township’s application to appeal. “If left undisturbed, the decision effectively renders any and all zoning land use regulations, which address caregiver grow operations, void and unenforceable.”

The township also [Read More]

DETROIT — To address the significant need to manage and minimize neurological complications associated with preterm and term newborn babies, Children’s Hospital of Michigan announced its newly developed Neuro-Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NeuroNICU).

Children’s Hospital of Michigan’s NeuroNICU is the first-of-its-kind in the state of Michigan and one of a select few across the nation, according to DMC sources. This program offers a specially trained team of clinicians dedicated to providing an appropriate environment that will help optimize neurologic and developmental outcomes for this highly vulnerable population.

“We are excited to join other select premier children’s hospitals throughout the country in establishing the NeuroNICU program,” said Girija Natarajan, MD, Co-Chief Division of [Read More]

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Last month, California’s new governor, Gavin Newsom, promised to pursue a smörgåsbord of changes to his state’s health care system: state negotiation of drug prices, a requirement that every Californian have health insurance, more assistance to help middle-class Californians afford it and health care for undocumented immigrants up to age 26.

The proposals fell short of the sweeping government-run single-payer plan Newsom had supported during his campaign — a system in which the state government would pay all the bills and effectively control the rates paid for services. (Many California politicians before him had flirted with such an idea, before backing off when it was estimated that it could [Read More]

By CHRISTINE WILLMSEN & MARTHA BEBINGER
The first nine months of 2013 started off as a banner year for the Sackler family, owners of the pharmaceutical company that produces OxyContin, the addictive opioid pain medication. Purdue Pharma paid the family $400 million from its profits during that time, claims a lawsuit filed by the Massachusetts attorney general.

However, when profits dropped in the fourth quarter, the family allegedly supported the company’s intense push to increase sales representatives’ visits to doctors and other prescribers.

Purdue had hired a consulting firm to help reps target “high-prescribing” doctors, including several in Massachusetts. One physician in a town south of Boston wrote an additional 167 prescriptions for [Read More]

By PAUL NATINSKY
When it comes to providing affordable basic healthcare, there is a group of entrepreneurial doctors poised to change the way healthcare is delivered: Direct Primary Care Physicians. These docs provide 80 to 90 percent of the healthcare their patients need for $50 to $70 per month. They offer prescription drugs and laboratory tests for up to 95 percent savings over what patients pay through insurance plans. They help negotiate discounted diagnostics like MRIs and colonoscopies and, in some cases help patients get lower cost visits with specialists. They see about half the patients of their insurance-model colleagues, but spend more time with each patient and offer unlimited visits [Read More]

Incoming Director Robert Gordon said early this month he believes there are “huge opportunities to improve services through the combination” of agencies that turned the Department of Health and Human Services into a huge 14,000-employee department.

“There are enormous connections between health and human services. People don’t live their lives in bureaucrat boxes,” he said in a telephone press conference today. “. . . I also know it is clear there is much more work to be done to leverage the combination and to get the full benefit.”

Gordon was appointed this month as the new DHHS director by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. He most recently was senior vice president of finance and [Read More]

By EWA MATUSZEWSKI
We have a Code of Conduct and a Code of Ethics. Heck, for ONyou history buffs, we even have the Code of Hammurabi. Why don’t we have a Code of Compassion, though? More specifically, a Code of Empathy? It wouldn’t be limited to the healthcare profession, but I can’t think of a better place to begin the codification process.

Actually, a Google search did turn up a video on a code of empathy, but its views are relatively insignificant; plus, it was preceded in search findings by “coding with empathy” and “coding with compassion.” I think that means the door is open for a movement on empathy in healthcare.
Empathy [Read More]