HEALTH
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 […]
With hepatitis infections rising, Virginia police agencies resist needle exchanges
It’s been more than a year since Virginia’s legislature opened the door for needle-exchange programs to curb rising hepatitis C infection rates and the potential increase in HIV infections that could follow in the wake of the opioid epidemic. While one program has been approved, none have actually opened anywhere in the state. The reason? […]
‘Fraudster preys on the poor:’ an all too familiar story
A recent headline from Lawyers Weekly (referencing a Richmond Times-Dispatch article) reads: Fraudster preyed on the poor. “A self-proclaimed credit consultant has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for ripping off debt-troubled customers in Chesterfield County,” the story says. As any legal-aid attorney will tell you, this is a familiar story. Fraudsters prey […]