March 28, 2024
About 1 million Floridians will get kicked off Medicaid. How could that affect the state?

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About 1 million Floridians will get kicked off Medicaid. How could that affect the state?

| 2/14/2023

About 1 million Floridians will get kicked off Medicaid. How could that affect the state?

In Florida, the number of individuals and families seeking Medicaid assistance rose from 3.8 million to 5.5 million between March 2020 and last November. The Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank, estimates about 18 million people throughout the nation will lose Medicaid coverage in April — about 3.2 million of those will be children. However, about 9.5 million people will probably get employer-sponsored insurance, Robertson said. Estimates on how many Floridians will be no longer eligible vary between 900,000 and 1.75 million residents. [Source: Health News Florida]

Find out if your Florida hospitals are hiding costs of medical care

Only about a third of Florida hospitals are fully complying with a federal law that requires them to disclose their prices for services, according to a new study. Though most of the hospitals have posted files, many were incomplete, illegible or lacked prices that were clearly associated with both a payer and plan, according to a recent report released by Patient Rights Advocate. In Florida, that included 107 hospitals that were not fully complying with the rule, the report said. [Source: Tampa Bay Times]

Editorial: What’s taken so long to expand Florida’s medical marijuana market?

The state has finally decided to issue more medical marijuana licenses. Florida health officials will accept applications for new licenses in late April, which should help pry open this notoriously closed market. More than six years after voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment to authorize medical marijuana in Florida, the state has issued only 22 licenses. Nearly from the start, state leaders have undermined the will of the people on this issue. [Source: Tampa Bay Times]

Menstrual questions cut from FHSAA athletic forms amid criticism

Questions about female athletes’ menstrual history will no longer appear on the medical forms that Florida high school students have to fill out before participating in sports, though the new form will still ask athletes for their sex assigned at birth, rather than just their sex. The Florida High School Athletic Association axed the questions on Thursday after listening to a flood of complaints contained in letters read aloud during an emergency meeting of the board. Answering the questions was previously optional. But an association advisory committee recently recommended that it be mandatory, sparking the firestorm of criticism. [Source: AP]

Nursing diploma scheme likely not contained to Florida

The nursing diploma scheme may go beyond Florida, as state boards check their staff records, according to Dr. Dani Bowie, vice president of clinical strategy and transformation for staffing firm Trusted Health. "The expectation is that this is not contained to Florida," Bowie said. Because there is no national governance overseeing licensure, background education checks would be done by state boards of nursing. Most are likely pulling records of nursing staff to verify records in light of the federal charges announced last month, Bowie said. [Source: Healthcare Finance News]

ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:

› As more Americans delay health care due to costs, Sarasota doctors work to help residents afford it
Nearly 40% of Americans say they put off medical treatment last year due to cost, according to a Gallup poll published in January. It's a 12-point increase from the year before and the highest since the analytics firm started tracking the issue in 2001. The Kaiser Family Foundation reported similar results in 2022. It found people were most likely to delay dental care, followed by vision services and doctor’s office visits. Many didn't take medications as prescribed.

› Some of Orlando Health's patients can now receive Hospital Care at Home
Orlando Health on Thursday will launch its Hospital Care at Home program, allowing patients in need of acute care to be treated in the comfort of their homes. The program would treat patients suffering from cellulitis, chrronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, urinary tract infection, heart failure, COVID-19, pneumonia and gastroenteritis.

› Florida nursing homes see spike in serious violations
Last year, Florida nursing homes were cited 83 times for putting their older adult residents at risk of immediate danger. Eighteen were in Tampa Bay. More than half of the serious violations involved staff shortages or insufficient training, the Times found. And 3 out of 5 violations were prompted by complaints that resulted in inspector visits. Citations stemmed from a range of issues, including neglect, abuse and poor care.

› Tallahassee Memorial taking more patients but network remains offline after cyberattack
Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare on Thursday announced it was increasing patient volume and accepting more emergency patients a week after a cyberattack took its IT system offline. The health system said it refining downtime procedures but still using paper documentation as it slowly brings impacted systems back online. Since the IT security threat Feb. 2, the hospital was forced to divert all but the most severe emergency patients to other hospitals.

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