HEALTH
As opioid epidemic drags on, meth deaths also start to rise
The drugs helped Stephanie Hague stay numb to the pain. If she left her brain alone for too long without any substances to distract it, she’d start to remember the abuse and trauma in her past. All she wanted to do was forget. “I just did not want to feel,” she said. Hague’s story is […]
From the emergency room to the courtroom: Va. medical providers sued patients for nearly $590 million over past five years
Annie Washington is 60 years old, has diabetes and no insurance. If she needs to see a doctor, she winds up in the emergency room. But while hospitals can’t turn indigent patients away, they can still bill them. And when patients can’t afford those bills, collection lawsuits often follow. “I work at McDonald’s,” the Henrico […]
Nurse practitioners and doctors clash as Virginia sets up autonomous practice rules
Virginia’s medical turf war appeared to come to an end earlier this year when nurse practitioners won the right to practice autonomously without physician supervision, despite objections from many of the state’s doctors. But the battle still rages on quietly behind the scenes as the state works to create the regulations that would govern the […]
Many Virginia nursing homes are short on staff, new federal data shows
In some Virginia nursing homes, residents see a nurse for about nine minutes every day. If they don’t see a staff member often enough, they could develop pressure sores because they weren’t turned over in bed. Or they might not get the right medication or help with food and hydration. “So many of our individuals […]
Nurse practitioners worry opioid-prescription rules will interfere with treating pain
Doctors began doling out opioid prescriptions in the 1990s under the guidance of pharmaceutical companies who promised the painkillers weren’t addictive. Now, a key part of tackling the drug epidemic sweeping the country is reining in the prescription pad. But in Virginia, some nurse practitioners say the state’s opioid prescription regulations are too strict and […]
State launches program to flag ‘high utilizers’ of hospital emergency departments
Dr. Bruce Lo sees these cases all the time, he said. A patient comes into his emergency department at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, and they’ve already been to a different emergency room dozens of times in the past few months. In the past, emergency physicians would essentially have to treat the patient in the dark, […]
Report: Virginia’s Medicaid work requirement could mean thousands lose coverage
The Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis, a Richmond-based, nonpartisan research organization, estimates that thousands of Virginians would lose coverage if the state successfully implements a work requirement as part of Medicaid expansion. The General Assembly passed Medicaid expansion during its last session after four years of failed attempts. To earn Republican support, the legislature added […]
Bon Secours merging with another Catholic health system
Bon Secours Health, which operates four hospitals in the Richmond area and three in Hampton Roads — in addition to facilities in five other states — is merging with Mercy Health, the largest health system in Ohio. Once combined, the two entities will “create one of the five largest Catholic health care systems in the […]
Four years of political battling over Medicaid expansion has ended. What comes next?
In May, when Virginia’s General Assembly passed a budget that includes expanding the state’s Medicaid program, Lisa Coles’ daughter came running into her bedroom, ecstatic. “She said, ‘Mom, we’re going to get health insurance! It’s coming through!’” Coles, 49, recalled. “I said, ‘Yeah, girl, Jan. 1, we’re going to get it!’ I was so happy.” […]
‘What recourse do you have other than to write the check?’ Lawmakers scrutinize ‘balance-billing.’
It’s becoming increasingly difficult for patients to protect themselves from surprise medical bills, and a Virginia legislative committee has the issue firmly in its crosshairs. As health care costs rise, patients are being asked to shoulder more of the burden. Some of that comes from a practice known as balance billing, when an out-of-network provider […]
Virginia’s health care-acquired infection rates mirror national averages, but is that good enough?
Jimi Suwaiti doesn’t remember much of the first few months of 2017, but her mother, Sharon Blackwell, does. Blackwell watched her 48-year-old daughter shake in her hospital bed in Virginia Beach because the pain from a bacterial infection was so terrible, and hallucinate, in her feverish state, that people were coming into her room. Suwaiti […]
Virginia, ‘do not eat this cereal’
Five of the 100 people recently sickened in a salmonella outbreak are Virginia residents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Only four of the 33 states affected by the outbreak — tied to Kellogg’s Honey Smacks, the 65-year-old sweetened puffed wheat cereal — have more cases. “Do not eat this cereal,” the […]