Dean Ernest had been living in a nursing home about a year when his son, John, got a call last winter asking if his father was experiencing back pain and would like a free orthotic brace.
The caller said he was with Medicare. John Ernest didn’t believe him, said “no” to the brace and hung up. He didn’t give out his father’s Medicare number.
And yet, not just one, but 13 braces arrived soon afterward at Ernest’s house in central Pennsylvania.
(Reuters) – The U.S. state of Arizona withdrew its support for a proposed nationwide opioid settlement with Purdue Pharma LP, saying the maker of OxyContin sought to “undermine material terms of the deal,” according to a court filing on Monday.
FILE PHOTO: Bottles of prescription painkiller OxyContin, 40mg, 20mg and 15mg pills, made by Purdue Pharma L.D. sit on a counter at a local pharmacy, in Provo, Utah, U.S., April 25, 2017. REUTERS/George Frey/File Photo
Since Purdue filed for bankruptcy protection in September, Arizona is the first state to switch sides in the looming showdown over the privately-held company’s proposed settlement, which it has estimated is worth more than $10 billion.
IRVINE, Calif. — Inside Obria Medical Clinics, conviction — not condoms — is summoned to stop the spread of chlamydia.
The Christian medical chain, awarded $1.7 million in federal family planning funds for the first time this year, does not offer hormonal birth control or condoms; instead, its doctors and nurses teach patients when they’re likely to be fertile and counsel them in restraint.
FILE PHOTO: Logo and flags of Bayer AG are pictured outside a plant of the German pharmaceutical and chemical maker in Wuppertal, Germany August 9, 2019. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay/File Photo
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – A pending U.S. lawsuit over claims related to Bayer’s (BAYGn.DE) glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup has been delayed, the company said on Sunday, with a new court date set for February, 2020.
“The Oct. 15, 2019 trial date for Winston v. Monsanto in St. Louis City has been postponed,” Bayer said in a statement.
DENVER — One patient at Denver Health, the city’s largest safety net hospital, occupied a bed for more than four years — a hospital record of 1,558 days.
Another admitted for a hard-to-treat bacterial infection needed eight weeks of at-home IV antibiotics, but had no home.
A third, with dementia, came to the hospital after being released from the Denver County Jail. His family refused to take him back.
Tennessee wants to be the first state to test a radical approach for federal financing of Medicaid, the federal-state health care program for low-income people.
The proposal, Tennessee Medicaid Director Gabe Roberts said, would increase the federal government’s contributions by millions of dollars and allow Tennessee to improve care for enrollees, perhaps offering additional services such as limited dental care for some people. But critics fear the plan will harm the poor.
Tennessee, controlled by a Republican governor and legislature, has not expanded its Medicaid program as allowed under the Affordable Care Act.
[UPDATED on Oct. 1]
She had been buying face cream through a friend of a friend for 12 years. This time, it was Pond’s “Rejuveness,” a version of the company’s anti-wrinkle cream that is made and sold in Mexico.
But someone in the Mexican state of Jalisco laced the cream with a toxic skin-lightening compound, and it had a devastating effect on the 47-year-old Sacramento resident.
She showed up at the emergency room this summer slurring her speech, unable to walk or feel her hands and face, public health officials said. She now lies semi-comatose in a hospital.
Kaiser Health News is suing the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to release dozens of audits that the agency says reveal hundreds of millions of dollars in overcharges by Medicare Advantage health plans.
The suit, filed late Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco under the Freedom of Information Act, seeks copies of 90 government audits of Medicare Advantage health plans conducted for 2011, 2012 and 2013 but never made public. CMS officials have said they expect to collect $650 million in overpayments from the audits. Although the agency has disclosed the names of the health plans under scrutiny, it has not released any other details.
At first, Dr. Robert Zorowitz thought his 83-year-old mother was confused. She couldn’t remember passwords to accounts on her computer. She would call and say programs had stopped working.
But over time, Zorowitz realized his mother — a highly intelligent woman who was comfortable with technology ― was showing early signs of dementia.
Increasingly, families will encounter similar concerns as older adults become reliant on computers, cellphones and tablets: With cognitive impairment, these devices become difficult to use and, in some cases, problematic.
MILWAUKEE — Dr. Lynn D’Andrea knew something was amiss when three teenagers with similar mysterious, dangerous lung injuries came into the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin one after another, gasping for air.
As the only pulmonologist on duty that Fourth of July holiday week, D’Andrea noticed those alarming cases followed on the heels of another teen who had a non-infectious condition with matching symptoms.
“‘We need to be thinking about something else,’” she told Dr. Michael Meyer, medical director of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, as he later recounted.