By EWA MATUSZEWSKI
We know that “Fix the Damn Roads” is a critical imperative for one of Michigan’s gubernatorial candidates—and hopefully for both. But is “Fix the damn interoperability problem with electronic health records” another? The intersection of healthcare and politics is obviously not new. I would contend it’s more visible—and viscious—than ever. Still, the focus tends to be on access to care and delivery of care, and I understand that. Interoperability of EHR hardly pulls at the heartstrings or incites passionate conversation from either side of the aisle. Accordingly, it doesn’t garner much attention from the consumer media either. That is why it is important for healthcare decision makers to [Read More]

By JESSE A. MARKOS, ESQ.
Wachler & Associates, P.C.
The Michigan Opioid Laws include a 10-bill package of legislation passed in December, 2017, to help curb Michigan’s increasing substance abuse and drug diversion problem. The majority of these provisions came into effect on June 1, 2018 and healthcare providers must become familiar with and incorporate these provisions in to their practice to ensure they are compliant with the changes.

Healthcare providers use the Michigan Automated Prescription System (MAPS) to review a history of any Schedule 2-5 controlled substances that a patient has legally obtained. Not only does MAPS list the prescriber and type of controlled substance that has been prescribed, but it also [Read More]

By RALPH LEVY
In early August, the Internal Revenue Service issued proposed regulations that provide guidance to owners of pass-through businesses as to eligibility for a federal tax deduction of 20 percent of the income generated by the businesses. This deduction was part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). Although the stated purpose of the proposed regulations is to provide clarity on eligibility for and the means to compute the deduction, this guidance is lengthy and complex. However, for healthcare providers, there are two important takeaways.

Takeaway No. 1: Guidance on whether a healthcare business is a “specified service trade or business.”

One of the important limitations to the pass-through [Read More]

Lyon’s Attorneys Seek To Dismiss Criminal Case
As expected, attorneys for Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon are asking the Genesee County Circuit Court to quash the bind over from district court and dismiss all criminal charges.
In court filings Sept. 10, defense attorneys John J. Bursch, Larry Willey and Charles “Chip” Chamberlain Jr. say Genesee County District Judge David Goggins’ made his “decision by closing (his) eyes to numerous principles well-settled in Michigan law” and that his decision to send Lyon to trial on two counts of involuntary manslaughter and misconduct in office is the first in the state’s history to hold a director criminally liable for [Read More]

Editor:

Just A Few Questions
How can it be expected that all physicians and all citizens will succumb to the idea of socialized medicine without inquiring as to why they should? Is it somehow mandatory that we U.S. citizens duplicate the socialist-lite bloated welfare states that are the examples of how the rest of the “advanced” world’s approaches healthcare? How is it always correct to increasingly subvert the medical profession by employing ever more restrictive regulatory shackles? Isn’t it interesting to witness how the left-leaning elites write a check with money they do not have that comes from our bank accounts so that they can snoot and virtue signal? Isn’t social justice [Read More]

The firefighting foam linked to the group of chemicals known as PFAS—which is believed to be harmful to infants, toddlers and pregnant women—is still being used because firefighters say the alternative extinguishing products don’t work as well.

Detection of PFAS has led to the creation of the Michigan PFAS Action Response Team, a multi-agency organization dedicated to understanding the far-reaching effects of the chemical and educating the public on the threat it poses.

The discovery of high concentrations of PFAS in the drinking water near Camp Grayling, Kent County and Parchment has spurred public and political concern. Most recently, U.S. Reps. Debbie Dingell (D-Dearborn), Fred Upton (R-St. Joseph) and Tim Walberg (R-Tipton) [Read More]

By PHIL GALEWITZ
Despite Republican resistance to the federal health law, the percentage of Americans without health insurance in 2017 remained the same as during the last year of the Obama administration, according to a closely watched report from the Census Bureau.

However, the uninsured rate did rise in 14 states. It was not immediately clear why, because the states varied dramatically by location, politics and whether they had expanded Medicaid under the federal health law. Those states included Texas, Florida, Vermont, Minnesota and Oregon.

The uninsured rate fell in three states: California, New York and Louisiana.

An estimated 8.8 percent of the population, or about 28.5 million people, did not have health insurance [Read More]

By EMMARIE HUETTEMAN
There are many lawmakers who made their names in health care, seeking to usher through historic changes to a broken system.

John McCain was not one of them.

And yet, the six-term senator from Arizona and decorated military veteran leaves behind his own health care legacy, seemingly driven less by his interest in health care policy than his disdain for bullies trampling the “little guy.”

He was not always successful. While McCain was instrumental in the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, most of the health initiatives he undertook failed after running afoul of traditional Republican priorities. His prescriptions often involved more government regulation and increased taxes.

In 2008, [Read More]

By FRED SCHULTE
As Purdue Pharma faced mounting criticism over deaths linked to OxyContin, rival drugmakers saw a chance to boost sales by stepping up marketing of similarly dangerous painkillers, such as fentanyl, morphine and methadone, Purdue internal documents reveal.

Purdue’s 1996-2002 marketing plans for OxyContin, which Kaiser Health News made public this year for the first time, offer an unprecedented look at how that company spent millions of dollars to push opioids for growing legions of pain sufferers. A wave of lawsuits demanding reimbursement and accountability for the opioid crisis now ravaging communities has heightened awareness about how and when drug makers realized the potential dangers of their products.

The Purdue documents [Read More]

The state still doesn’t have an exact figure on the number of Healthy Michigan recipients who could lose health coverage because of the work requirements recently enacted by the Legislature.

However, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said it doesn’t expect more than 400,000 of the roughly 680,000 Healthy Michigan recipients to be affected by the 80 hours-per-month requirement that came with Sen. Mike Shirkey’s (R-Clarklake) SB 0897, signed into law by Gov. Rick Snyder in June.

That 400,000 number is based on subtracting from the total program population the number of people who are already meeting those hours, or are exempt from other work requirements posed by food assistance [Read More]