Gov. Gretchen Whitmer offered three emergency rules Sep. 4 banning all flavored vaping products from Michigan shelves amid what Chief Medical Executive Dr. Joneigh Khaldun said is a youth vaping “public health emergency.”

“This is a health crisis and in a health crisis, I have the ability to take action and we’re taking it,” Whitmer said. “There are 13-year-olds who are vaping fruit loops right now. They are doing life-long damage and have no idea they are engaging in a substance that they’re going to be addicted to maybe for the rest of their lives,” she said.

The governor said she is the nation’s first chief executive to move against the vaping [Read More]

By PHIL GALEWITZ
For the first time in a decade, the number of Americans without health insurance has risen — by about 2 million people in 2018 — according to the annual U.S. Census Bureau report released this month.

The Census found that 8.5 percent of the U.S. population went without medical insurance for all of 2018, up from 7.9 percent in 2017. By contrast, in 2013, before the Affordable Care Act took full effect, 13.3 percent were uninsured. It was the first year-to-year increase since 2008-09, Census officials said.

Census officials said most of drop in health coverage was related to a 0.7 percent decline in Medicaid participants. The number of people [Read More]

By JESSE ADAM MARKOS, Esq.
Wachler & Associates, P.C

In the past few years there has been growing public concern about professional boundary issues in healthcare with the increase in reported cases of providers interacting inappropriately with patients. As a result, state licensing boards have become increasingly proactive in investigating such allegations. In fact, the Ohio Medical Board recently announced plans to review and potentially reopen nearly 2,000 closed cases of alleged sexual misconduct or impropriety by physicians in Ohio over the past 25 years to determine whether any credible evidence of criminal or otherwise inappropriate behavior had been previously overlooked.

The Ohio Medical Board’s review of cases that were previously closed [Read More]

After 33 years of service as Executive Director of the Genesee County Medical Society, Pete Levine announced his retirement as of July 1, 2019. Levine said, “It has been an honor to serve as Executive Director of GCMS and work with such exceptional physicians and practice managers to improve healthcare in our community.”

During his retirement, Levine said he will enjoy more time with family, pursuing his personal interests, providing selected consultations, as well as continuing to represent GCMS at the Greater Flint Health Coalition.
Pete will also voice his insights and perspectives in these pages and continue as an editorial advisor to Healthcare Michigan.

“We are grateful for Pete’s many years of [Read More]

By EWA MATUSZEWSKI
The circle of care is wide – and getting wider. With all the national conversation around diversity and inclusion, I think the healthcare field can give itself a pat on the back, at least on the inclusion side. I refer to a different kind of inclusion here – and that’s the inclusion of a broad spectrum of caregivers as an extension of the care team – and ultimately into the world of reimbursement.

For too long, the focus was chiefly on the physician when it came to care and reimbursement, but the value of the care team has grown too strong (based on supporting data and anecdotal evidence) to [Read More]

By REESA N. BENKOFF, ESQ
Benkoff Health Law, PLLC
On August 22, 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) announced proposed changes to the Confidentiality of Substance Abuse Disorder Patient Records regulations, set forth in 42 CFR Part 2 (Part 2). Part 2 protects and prevents access to patient records created by federally assisted substance abuse disorder (SUD) treatment programs. SUD is a defined term, and includes cognitive, behavioral, and physiological symptoms indicating that an individual continues using a substance despite significant substance-related problems such as impaired control, social impairment, risky use, and pharmacological tolerance and withdrawal, but does [Read More]

House Votes To Put Warnings On Pot For Mothers, Breastfeeders
The House voted overwhelmingly Sep. 10 to put warning labels on recreational and medical marijuana products, to tell pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers that smoking pot can have harmful effects on their infants.

Members voted 105-4 on HB 4126 and HB 4127, sponsored by Rep. Thomas Albert (R-Lowell) and Rep. Daire Rendon (R-Lake City), to require labels in the same way tobacco and alcohol products carry warning labels now.

“There’s been some pretty alarming studies showing that in an unfortunate trend, a lot of women are continuing to use marijuana while they are pregnant,” Albert said. “It is pretty shocking that someone would [Read More]

ALLAN DOBZYNIAK, MD
It is notable how the concept of “Medicare for all” has presently provoked such vigorous support by the Democrat leadership. With Obamacare moving the balance so close to single-payer via political muscle, to have a reversal of this embedded ideological goal is intolerable to the left. The thought of placing any entitlement back on the bargaining table and above politics, healthcare in particular, continues to be outside of mainstream Democratic mainstream ideological thinking. There is no guarantee an expanding welfare state can continue, despite emotional pandering that eclipses this reality. The weaponization of emotional issues to manipulate people, such as “virtue signaling,” is a despicable tactic. To create [Read More]

By JULIE APPLEBY & ELIZABETH LUCAS
When they started practicing medicine, most surgeons say, there was little or no information about just how many pain pills patients needed after specific procedures.

As a result, patients often were sent home with the equivalent of handfuls of powerful and addictive medications. Then the opioid crisis hit, along with studies showing one possible side effect of surgery is long-term dependence on pain pills. These findings prompted some medical centers and groups of physicians to establish surgery-specific guidelines.

But questions remained: Would anyone pay attention to the guidelines and would smaller amounts be sufficient to control patients’ pain?

Yes, appears to be the answer to both — in [Read More]

While most doctors in Michigan believe the state’s new rules for prescribing opioids will help to address the overuse epidemic, only 20 percent have been trained in Medication-Assisted Treatment and nearly two-thirds said they aren’t interested in getting trained.

Those were the results of a recent survey of some 600 primary care providers by the Center for Health and Research Transformation (CHRT) at the University of Michigan to gauge sentiment of the state’s 2017 efforts to deter over prescribing, including mandatory use of the Michigan Automated Prescription System (MAPS).

“CHRT’s physician survey shows that Michigan’s new requirements for MAPS reporting are generally supported by primary care physicians in Michigan. However, physician interest [Read More]