Clearwater Continues to Grow, Welcomes New VP of Customer Experience

March 17, 2016, 3:23 pm

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Clearwater welcomes Darin Moore as VP of Customer Experience

Nashville,TN (PRWEB) March 17, 2016

Clearwater Compliance is pleased to welcome Darin Moore to the company as Vice President of Customer Experience. Mr. Moore is a seasoned executive with over two decades of valuable experience in technology and health care. At Clearwater, Mr. Moore will work with the company’s current customer implementation, software support/service, and professional services delivery teams to find new and innovative ways to deliver superior service to its customers while strengthening ties to its customer community.

“We are thrilled to add someone of Darin’s calibre to the Clearwater leadership team,” said Bob Chaput, the company’s founder and CEO. “He brings a wealth of invaluable experience as we continue to grow as health care faces unprecedented cybersecurity threats to maintaining the privacy and security of patient data in this new era of electronic health records.”

Before joining Clearwater, Mr. Moore worked as an executive-level consultant, providing leadership guidance to numerous health care companies. During this time, he has served as chief technology officer for a provider-owned health insurance company and guided two health insurance companies in developing a technology roadmap for creating a third entity that would handle back-office processing;. Additionally, he led a Medicaid migration and implementation at one health care BPO organization and the restructure operations at another.

Prior to his work as a consultant, Mr. Moore was chief technology officer for a Nashville-area health care company focused on the senior home health market, where he was responsible for development, testing, security, HIPAA compliance, and operations support of the firm’s software platform and operations.

At Healthways, a well-being improvement company based in Nashville, Mr. Moore served as VP of IT Applications, led the design and development team of a new technology platform in addition to managing IT departments at five companies acquired by Healthways. Prior to his work with Healthways, Mr. Moore was VP of Applications at Aflac in Columbus, Georgia where he led a team numbering more than 400 in strategic planning, architecture and application development

A graduate of Electronic Data System’s System Engineering Program, Mr. Moore earned his Bachelor of Science degree in computer information systems from Murray State University in Kentucky. Darin resides in the Nashville area with his wife and two sons, and enjoys running, fishing and hiking.

About Clearwater Compliance

Clearwater Compliance, LLC, helps health care organizations and their business associates improve patient safety and quality of care by assisting them establish, operationalize and mature their compliance and cybersecurity programs. Led by veteran, C-suite health care executives, Clearwater’s award-winning software, educational events and expert professional services provide scalable, cost-effective solutions for all sizes of organizations. Since 2009, the company has served hundreds of clients ranging from major health systems, hospitals, health plans and Fortune 100 companies, to medical practices and health care startups. Find out more about Clearwater’s compliance, cybersecurity and information risk management solutions at clearwatercompliance.com Reported by PRWeb 17 hours ago.

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Experts Say Not to Panic Over Head Lice; Lice Troopers Offers Insight

March 18, 2016, 5:59 am

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Experts tell parents to remain calm during lice outbreaks as prevention and treatments are available. Lice Troopers offer insight and advice on keeping outbreaks at bay.

Miami, Florida (PRWEB) March 18, 2016

The head louse, a sturdy bug that isn’t easily eliminated, often seems like an insurmountable foe to naturally concerned parents. But experts tell parents to remain calm during lice outbreaks, according to a Health report on March 7. “Head lice don’t carry diseases or indicate poor parenting or housekeeping,” Dr. Karen Sheehan, a pediatric emergency medicine specialist at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, told Health.

Many assume that a clean home and frequently bathed kids equal prevention, but Arie Harel, owner and operator of Lice Troopers, a lice removal service in Florida, points out that lice often prefer clean hair.

Lice are preventable, detectable, and treatable as long as the condition is well understood. These parasites live exclusively in the hair. They do not fly or jump, but can be passed via head-to-head contact or on any object that comes into contact with the hair such as brushes, combs, hats, coats and sports equipment.

“Our goal is to educate parents and help prevent infestations at home and epidemics at school. By being aware of head lice, what they look like and how they spread, parents can help stop a major outbreak before it starts,” Harel says.

According to Harel, a major step in preventing epidemics is screening. Many schools conduct regular screening sessions, which is important because even one case of head lice can turn into a school wide plague. “The earlier these cases are detected, the sooner the affected children can be treated -- stopping the outbreak in its tracks,” he says.

If parents do discover head lice, the condition should be treated immediately. Head lice will not go away on their own so they must be removed; And the safest and most effective way to do this is by combing. Many parents are now looking to professional services that take the hassle and stress out of lice removal. No need for endless weeks of combing or toxic drug store treatments, head lice removal professionals take care of the problem in approximately an hour with a service that is guaranteed effective. This helps to get rid of the problem faster and gets kids back into school lice free.

About the company:
Lice Troopers is the all-natural, guaranteed Head Lice Removal Service™ in the Miami, FL area that manually removes the head louse parasite safely and discreetly. Lice Troopers is partnering with schools to help reduce head lice outbreaks and to contain the problem quickly and effectively if lice does make an appearance in the classroom. The company has three salon clinic locations: 2109 Le Jeune Rd., Coral Gables, FL 33134, 1005 Kane Concourse, Suite 212, Bay Harbour Islands, FL 33154, and 5735 Hollywood Blvd. Hollywood, FL 33021 and also provides screenings and treatment by house call.

Lice Troopers team has successfully treated thousands of families nationwide, with services widely recommended by pediatricians and reimbursed by many major health insurance carriers, flexible spending accounts and health savings accounts. Reported by PRWeb 2 hours ago.

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Dear Bernie: Our Mental Health Isn't a Punch Line for Your Jokes

March 18, 2016, 8:10 am

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I walked myself down to the local hospital just before 5 a.m. and asked to voluntarily commit myself.

After nearly 18 hours in the ER, I was finally cleared by the night-shift psychiatrist and given a bed. That's unusual -- often times people stay in emergency departments for days before a bed opens up. Or they get shuffled around to different psychiatric units, sometimes out of state."

The first person to talk to me was a boy who helped me get acclimated to the ward. He told me a bit about himself, how he dropped out of high school and couldn't keep a job due to his illness. On his 21st birthday, which was my second day in the ward, I asked him what he wanted for his birthday. He said that all he wanted was to go out to dinner with his mom and four brothers. Later in the week, I learned he was committed for attempting to murder his entire family.

The length of psychiatric stays varies; mine was just a week, on average with the majority of American cases, as the staff tries to get you on your feet and discharged immediately to make room for new patients. The first boy I met was only in the ward for two weeks. Another young man had been in the ward for four months, and I'm still not sure if he's out.

In a sense, it's easier to be inside the psychiatric ward than outside it. When searching for outpatient care, I was told that the hospital hadn't been taking new patients in over two years. Through connections, my mother was able to find a few psychiatrists who were open to new patients, but none of them were within my health insurance plan. One charged $700 for an evaluation alone. Thankfully, I have family willing to pay for these services, but not everyone is able; over 50 percent of mentally ill Americans listed cost as a reason to not seek treatment.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness estimates that 1 in 5 Americans suffers from mental illness in a given year -- that's 18.5 percent of the population, or 43.8 million people. Chances are you know someone suffering -- but do you know that they're suffering?

There is a huge stigma around mental illness and it directly affects whether people seek treatment. Whites are the most likely to get treatment for mental illness, with Blacks and Latinos getting help at half the rate of Whites. According to the 2010 National Healthcare Disparities Report, Asians get even less help -- clocking in at only one-third of the rate of Whites. But it's not just treatment that's affected by race; we see a difference even in the acknowledgement that people are struggling. As a general rule, people of color don't talk about mental illness. We suffer silently.

Throughout high school, I struggled with self-harm, depression and substance abuse. While college has been exponentially better, my latest episode could easily have been my last.

So when presidential candidates make a joke of mental illness on national television, I am pained. Here are two Democratic candidates whom I support and who claim they care about the accessibility of mental health care. Yet, Senator Sanders chose to equate mentally ill people -- people like me -- to the hatemongers of the Republican Party.

I don't know which is worse: that Sanders thought this joke was in good-taste or that Secretary Clinton -- and the entire audience in Flint, Mich. -- laughed along with Sanders. Every day, Americans use mental illness as shorthand for bigotry, for stupidity, for violence. For sure, violence can be a part of some mental illness. But for those of us inside mental institutions hoping to get out, we are not given the luxury of being angry like Trump or bigoted like Cruz.

I am still processing the enormity of my actions and my illness, and what it means for those who survive my suicide attempt with me. I am angry with the politicians who see us as a joke, but I am not angry for myself alone.

A version of this post originally appeared on erriewirriams.wordpress.com.
___________________If you -- or someone you know -- need help, please call *1-800-273-8255* for the *National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.* If you are outside of the U.S., please visit the *International Association for Suicide Prevention* for a database of international resources.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 17 minutes ago.

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Naugatuck Municipal Employees Receive Raises: Report

March 18, 2016, 8:52 am

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Naugatuck Municipal Employees Receive Raises: Report

Patch Naugatuck, CT -- While employees received raises, the borough is receiving some savings on health insurance costs. Reported by Patch 1 day ago.

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Senate HELP Committee Passes Pretend Mental Health Bill

March 18, 2016, 12:23 pm

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Earlier this month, allegedly mentally ill Kyle Odom shot pastor Tim Remington in Idaho because he "knew" the pastor was a Martian. In his untreated delusional state, Kyle then flew to Washington, D.C. and started throwing his possessions over the White House fence to get the president's attention so he could inform him about all the other Martians in government, including Senators Mitch McConnell, Elizabeth Warren, Dick Durbin, Roger Wicker, and Patty Murray.

Congress should learn from episodes like that. Yet at the same time Kyle went on his mission, Senators Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D., Wash.) went on theirs. They revealed a discussion draft of their Mental Health Reform [sic] Act of 2016 (S. 2680), and on March 16, succeeded in having the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee pass it. While no one doubts their good intentions, it is perhaps the worst mental health bill ever conceived, a pretend mental health bill. It pretends to help by creating a rudderless hodgepodge of studies, reports, commissions, and added bureaucracy that would do nothing to help people like Kyle.

John Snook, of the Treatment Advocacy Center, an organization focused on improving care for the seriously mentally ill, told Modern Healthcare, "If this were to pass as is, it would be of no benefit to [people with] severe mental illness." Mental-illness-policy advocate, blogger, and former Washington Post reporter Pete Earley wrote, "The Senate has now set a low standard."

Alexander and Murray should know better. There are plenty of bills floating around that include useful provisions. Senator John Cornyn (R., Texas) introduced the Mental Health and Safe Community Act of 2015 (S2002) specifically to reduce violence by the most seriously mentally ill. It encourages states to use assisted outpatient treatment (AOT). Assisted outpatient treatment is only for a tiny group of the most seriously ill who have already accumulated multiple episodes of violence, arrest, homelessness, incarceration, or hospitalization because they refused to stay in treatment. It allows judges to order them into six months of mandated and monitored treatment while they continue to live in the community. It is the only program with independent research showing it reduces homelessness, arrest, incarceration and violence in the 70 percent range.

Senators Alexander and Murray also ignored provisions in the Mental Health Reform Act of 2015 (S. 1945), proposed by Senators Chris Murphy (D., Conn.) and Bill Cassidy (R., Louisiana). That bill would slightly ameliorate the federal proscription on using Medicaid mental health funds for those who are so seriously mentally ill they need hospitalization. New York City Police commissioner William Bratton recently described the lack of hospital beds as the top difficulty for officers who are called to assist the seriously mentally ill. Alexander and Murray expressed support for these provisions but claimed they are outside their committee's jurisdiction.

But Alexander and Murray also ignored all the extraordinary work of Representative Tim Murphy (R., Pa.) and Eddie Bernice Johnson (D., Texas) in the House. They introduced the bipartisan Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act (H.R. 2646), which would eliminate wasteful, counterproductive federally-funded mental "wellness" programs and reallocate the savings to programs that are proven to help the most seriously mentally ill. H.R. 2646 would start by defanging the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), perhaps the most useless bureaucracy in Washington. Its own employees rated it one of the worst federal agencies. SAMHSA funds anti-psychiatrists who lobby Congress, encourages states to use federal mental illness funds on people who don't have mental illness, certifies as "evidence-based" programs that don't help the mentally ill, and wastes money. There is no support for it other than from those who receive funds from it. Alexander and Murray added more bureaucracy rather than taking a scalpel to it. Their committee should have done better.

Alexander and Murray ignored fixing the provisions in HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, 1996), a patient privacy law that prevents families that provide housing and case-management services to mentally ill loved ones from receiving the same information that paid providers receive. Families that are prohibited from communicating with doctors cannot ensure that prescriptions are filled or transportation to appointments arranged or take other actions to prevent tragedy. Instead of fixing the problems within HIPAA, Alexander and Murray layered on new regulations and money, to educate service providers as to what HIPAA is supposed to really mean.

The problem with this approach, is that if Congress passes this bill, it will feel it "did something" when all it really did was ignore addressing the needs of the most seriously mentally ill.

The Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act is the best bill in Congress if the goal is to use taxpayer funds efficiently, help people like Kyle, and keep patients, the public, and police safer. The bill has massive support, except from those who want to keep their SAMHSA funding in place and those who defend the right of the psychotic to stay psychotic.

The Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act has the support of 135 Republicans and 50 Democrats. But 11 recalcitrant Democrats are holding up passage and, to accommodate them, Representatives Fred Upton (R., Mich.) and Joe Pitts (R., Penn.) are so far refusing to let the bill come to a vote in the Energy and Commerce Committee. They should bring it to an up-or-down vote immediately.

While Congress dithers, persons with serious mental illness are going untreated, needlessly suffering, stabbing innocent people in New York, shooting a pastor in Idaho, and throwing foreign objects over the White House fence. Most persons with mental illness, even serious mental illness, are not violent, but we can't ignore those who are. Only when H.R. 2646 passes the House and a companion bill passes the Senate will the madness start to subside.

D. J. Jaffe is executive director of Mental Illness Policy Org., a non-partisan think tank on serious mental illness.

An earlier version of this article, written before the bill passed on March 16, appeared in National Review.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 20 hours ago.

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Plastic Surgeon Pleads Guilty To Health Insurance Fraud

March 19, 2016, 5:36 am

≫ Next: An exec who worked at Google for more than a decade reveals what he'll miss most now that he left to join a startup (GOOG)

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Plastic Surgeon Pleads Guilty To Health Insurance Fraud

Patch Palm Desert, CA -- Dr. David M. Morrow, 71, was charged last fall. Reported by Patch 3 hours ago.

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An exec who worked at Google for more than a decade reveals what he'll miss most now that he left to join a startup (GOOG)

March 19, 2016, 12:54 pm

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An exec who worked at Google for more than a decade reveals what he'll miss most now that he left to join a startup (GOOG)

Alan Warren worked at Google for nearly 12 years before making the leap to health insurance startup Oscar earlier this week.

Warren helped build Google's New York City office from 50 engineers to more than 3,000 and most recently led engineering for products like Docs and Drive as well as its "Classroom" education efforts.

He tells Business Insider that he's excited to work on a smaller team — Oscar has 400 employees and as CTO he'll be working closely with its 55 engineers — but admits that he'll miss one thing in particular about working for an enormous, sprawling company like Google. And it's not the gorgeous offices or cushy perks.

It's getting to see all the drastically different kinds of projects his colleagues were hustling on.

"Google has the luxury of being able to spin-off in lots of different directions, from self-driving cars to AlphaGo's artificial intelligence and machine learning," he says. "And that was always fun to have an 'inside tap' into. It's very exciting to get to see those things very early on, and have people working on those kinds of things around you. I will miss having that inside peek into wildly different arenas."

Oscar, on the other hand, is highly focused on health care and finding new ways to use technology to make health insurance cheaper and easier to understand.

"It's also very cool to be in a place where people are singularly focused on a common mission," Warren says. "And that's Oscar through-and-through."

*SEE ALSO: Google is trying to sell Boston Dynamics, the crazy robotics company it bought in 2013*

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: How to send self-destructing messages — and other iPhone messaging tricks Reported by Business Insider 20 hours ago.

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Scalia's death could affect politically tinged cases

March 20, 2016, 6:41 am

≫ Next: Transgender inmate planning to have surgery on her own

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The death of Justice Antonin Scalia has deprived conservatives of a reliable vote on a range of issues, including the design of congressional districts in Virginia and the Obama administration's effort to accommodate faith-based groups that object to paying for contraceptives as part of their health insurance plans. In those two upcoming cases, Republican members of Congress from Virginia and the not-for-profit hospitals, colleges and charities appear unlikely to win the vote of at least one of the four liberal justices, based on the outcome of earlier, related cases. A lower court threw out the map, concluding that lawmakers illegally packed black voters into one district to make adjacent districts safer for Republican incumbents. [...] Democrats carried Virginia in the past two presidential elections and hold both Senate seats and the governor's office. On Wednesday, the court will take up an appeal from religious not-for-profit groups claiming they remain complicit in providing morally objectionable contraceptives to women covered under their health plans, despite an arrangement devised by the Obama administration that spares employers from paying for the birth control. Houses of worship and other religious institutions whose primary purpose is to spread the faith are exempt from the requirement in the Obama health care overhaul to offer birth control. Reported by SeattlePI.com 2 hours ago.

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Transgender inmate planning to have surgery on her own

March 20, 2016, 4:22 pm

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A transgender inmate who was paroled after a judge ordered California to pay for her sex reassignment surgery is making plans to have the surgery on her own this summer through coverage provided by the state’s low-income health insurance program, she told a California newspaper. A federal judge ordered the state […] Reported by Seattle Times 17 hours ago.

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AIS-Softheon Webinar to Discuss New Reporting and Analytic Techniques to Improve Margins on Public Exchanges

March 21, 2016, 3:04 am

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In a complimentary March 29 webinar managed and moderated by Atlantic Information Services, experts from Softheon will describe the details of their new reporting and analytic techniques for health plans doing business on ACA exchanges.

Washington, DC (PRWEB) March 21, 2016

Atlantic Information Services, Inc. (AIS) and Softheon, Inc. are pleased to announce an upcoming March 29 webinar, “Strategies to Improve Health Plan Margins on Public Insurance Exchanges.” Experts from Softheon — a web-broker entity (WBE) and cloud-based technology vendor that works with private and public insurance exchanges — will outline steps health plans can take to minimize financial losses on qualified health plans by incorporating innovative analytical and reporting strategies. This webinar is complimentary and is moderated and managed by AIS.

In 45 minutes of hard-hitting presentations followed by a 15-minute Q&A session, Eugene Sayan, Founder & CEO of Softheon, and Umer Mujeeb, data scientist at Softheon, will provide insider perspectives on key questions, including:· What strategies can health plans pursue to achieve exchange sustainability?
· What specific approaches can be adopted to improve margins of health plan exchange operations?
· Which approaches should health plans consider to achieve growth in their federal exchange business?
· How can health plans reduce — and gain greater control over — their administrative loss ratios (ALRs) and medical loss ratios (MLRs)?
· What type of intelligence can be gained from enrollment, billing and claims data? How can this improve health plan revenue expectations?

Visit http://www2.softheon.com/3/29-AIS-Softheon-Webinar for more details and registration information.

About Softheon
Empowering the nation's first state health benefit exchange since 2008, Softheon's vision and strategic direction address healthcare payer, provider, and government agencies' goal of meeting Affordable Care Act (ACA) milestones. Softheon provides HIX Integration, Direct Enrollment, Premium Billing, and Edge Server solutions for insurance carriers of all sizes participating in Federal and State Health Insurance Exchange (HIX) Marketplaces. Softheon's Marketplace Connector Cloud (MC2) has been trusted by health plans, in all 50 states, as an accelerated federal, state, and private exchange integration platform. Softheon MC2 is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution where insurers pay a one-time activation and ongoing PMPM fees for exchange members only, while eliminating most, if not all, risks associated with ACA enrollment compliance and other mandates. To find out more about Softheon, visit http://www.softheon.com.

About AIS
Atlantic Information Services, Inc. (AIS) is a publishing and information company that has been serving the health care industry for nearly 30 years. It develops highly targeted news, data and strategic information for managers in hospitals and health systems, health insurance companies, medical group practices, purchasers of health insurance, pharmaceutical companies and other health care organizations. AIS products include print and electronic newsletters, databases, Websites, looseleafs, strategic reports, directories, webinars and virtual conferences. Reported by PRWeb 7 hours ago.

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Novus Medical Detox Center Calls for Drug Treatment Providers to Cease Urine Drug Testing Fraud and Abuse

March 21, 2016, 5:02 am

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Following lawsuits and investigations into profit-driven urine drug testing practices, Novus Medical Detox Center urges physicians, laboratories and drug treatment facilities to take action to improve compliance and patient outcomes.

New Port Richey, FL (PRWEB) March 21, 2016

While urine drug testing (UDT) plays an important role in drug abuse treatment and prevention, a number of urinalysis laboratories, physicians and other addiction treatment providers have faced financial repercussions for UDT fraud and abuse (1, 2, 3, 4). Novus Medical Detox Center, a leading Florida-based drug treatment facility, joins other organizations and professionals within the treatment community in calling for the implementation of best practices to prevent UDT fraud and ensure the highest standard of care for patients.

The recent controversy over urine drug testing relates to profit-driven marketing and billing activities by diagnostic testing laboratories. From 1990 to 2013, UDT sales jumped from $800 million to an estimated $2 billion (1). Subsequent investigations into the skyrocketing UDT volume concluded that some labs were overbilling health insurance providers, submitting claims for medically unnecessary tests, or offering kickbacks or other inducements to physicians and drug treatment centers in exchange for ordering drug tests (2).

Many organizations, agencies and experts within the drug treatment community are calling for better compliance with industry guidelines to prevent UDT fraud and abuse. “Urine drug testing can be an effective tool in drug treatment and prevention when it is part of a comprehensive, outcome-focused treatment plan,” said Bryn Wesch, CFO of Novus Medical Detox Center. “However, the problem occurs when labs, doctors and addiction treatment facilities abuse the system by ordering unnecessary or excessive tests for financial gain. Their actions have sowed distrust among insurers and government agencies, and made it more difficult for compliant providers to conduct medically necessary testing and treatment.”

To ensure compliance and minimize legal liability, Wesch advises physicians, laboratories and other drug treatment providers to adopt best practices and follow guidelines established by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM). These include a step-down approach to urine drug testing, in which the frequency of tests is adjusted based on outcomes and demonstrated compliance, and proper billing, with claims submitted to insurance only for physician-approved, treatment-focused drug tests. (Tests that are not reviewed by a physician and conducted only to confirm drug abstinence are not reimbursable and should not be submitted.)

Wesch also echoes the recommendations of healthcare attorney Harry Nelson to maintain detailed documentation regarding treatment plans and outcomes in relation to urine drug testing (2). Each test should be accompanied by a signed treatment order that is part of the patient record, along with the relevant medical history and physical examination results. There should also be documentation of periodic follow-up visits, an in-depth analysis of the test results as they relate to treatment and a demonstrated reduction in the frequency of testing over time.

Novus provides medically supervised detox programs that help patients comfortably and safely manage withdrawal from illicit or controlled substances. In addition to offering detox programs for alcohol, heroin, opioids and other prescription medications, Novus treats even high-dose methadone cases other facilities refuse.

About Novus Medical Detox Center:

Novus Medical Detox Center is a Joint Commission Accredited inpatient medical detox facility. Novus offers safe, effective alcohol and drug treatment programs in a home-like residential setting. Located on 3.25 tree-lined acres in New Port Richey, Florida, Novus is licensed by the Florida Department of Children and Families and is known for minimizing the discomfort of withdrawal from prescription medication, drugs or alcohol by creating a customized detox program for each patient. By incorporating medication, natural supplements and fluid replenishment, Novus tailors the detox process for each patient, putting the dignity and humanity back into drug detoxification. Patients have 24/7 medical supervision, including round-the-clock nursing care and access to a withdrawal specialist, and enjoy comfortable private or shared rooms with a telephone, cable television and high-speed Internet access. Novus’ expansion is tied to their contribution to their industry and their local community, ranking number 48 on the Tampa Bay Business Journal’s 2014 Fast 50 Awards list of the fastest-growing companies in Tampa Bay, and number 3,399 on the 2015 Inc. 500/5000 list of fastest-growing companies in America. For more information, visit http://www.novusdetox.com.

1. Meier, Barry. “Increase in Urine Testing Raises Ethical Questions”; The New York Times; August 1, 2013. nytimes.com/2013/08/02/business/increase-in-urine-testing-raises-ethical-questions.html

2. Nelson, Harry. “How Urine Drug Testing Fraud and Abuse Is Impacting the Treatment Community”; BNA’s Health Care Fraud Report; February 17, 2016. nelsonhardiman.com/media/NelsonArticlePDF.pdf

3. “Government Settles False Claims Act Allegations Against Kentucky Addiction Clinic, Clinical Lab and Two Doctors for $15.75 Million”; press release issued by U.S. Department of Justice; February 10, 2014. justice.gov/opa/pr/government-settles-false-claims-act-allegations-against-kentucky-addiction-clinic-clinical

4. Miller, Julie. “The least you need to know about recent drug testing scrutiny”; Behavioral Healthcare; October 30, 2015. behavioral.net/blogs/julie-miller/least-you-need-know-about-recent-drug-testing-scrutiny Reported by PRWeb 5 hours ago.

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National Intervention Counseling Group Celebrates 8th Anniversary

March 21, 2016, 6:05 am

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Founded by Counselor Mike Loverde, Family First Intervention forges ahead into its eighth year of counseling drug and alcohol addicts and their families. Family First Intervention has helped stage more than 1,500 interventions for drug- and alcohol-addicted individuals since its founding.

Phoenix, AZ (PRWEB) March 21, 2016

Family First Intervention, a group of specialized addiction interventionists, is celebrating its eighth anniversary this month. The organization’s founder, Mike Loverde, had several years of intervention counseling experience and as an owner of a drug rehabilitation facility prior to incorporating the company in March 2008.

Family First Intervention has helped stage more than 1,500 interventions for drug- and alcohol-addicted individuals since its founding. Additionally, the group has helped nearly another 1,000 substance abusers find the most appropriate rehabilitation program according to their budget and treatment needs.

“We’re really grateful to have reached eight years in business, but really, we’re just getting started,” said Loverde, who is also the President of the group and either leads or coordinates every intervention with families. “There’s much more work to be done on tackling this epidemic, and there’s always an addict and family that’s going to need help.

“The thing about every intervention we coordinate is each situation really isn’t unique. The addicts we work with can’t really get high without the family’s help, whether passively or actively. Yes, the person almost always starts using without the family knowing, but he or she can’t continue to get high without the family enabling it, either subconsciously or overtly. This is why it’s important that we keep spreading our message of how the family is accountable in their loved one’s addiction – and subsequent recovery attempt.”

In recent years, Family First Intervention has seen a disproportionately high number of calls for individuals struggling with heroin or opioid addiction, a problem that’s currently plaguing the country and has caught the attention of news outlets and even the White House.

Since 2008, Family First Intervention not only sets up and leads interventions for these struggling individuals and their families, but the counseling group also helps substance abusers find an appropriate treatment program thereafter. This process includes personally reviewing a client’s health insurance plan to see which facilities accept his or her benefits, and then making a professional referral.

Family First primarily stages interventions and works with clients suffering from drug abuse and alcoholism, but the group also offers intervention services to those addicted to gambling, sex, food, hoarding and even people with eating disorders. It’s important to get the entire family to participate in the intervention, not just one or two members. The intervention’s focus is not on the substance or “escape” of choice, but on what the person is doing or not doing with his or her life as a result of the addiction. The ultimate goal of the intervention is to convince the loved one into being willing to accept treatment for the addiction.

Family First Intervention is based in Arizona, but has a national presence thanks to its talented core of intervention counselors, who can travel to any state. To learn more about the company or to make an intervention inquiry, please visit https://family-intervention.com/. Reported by PRWeb 4 hours ago.

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Clintonism Deserves its Due

March 21, 2016, 7:59 am

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Whenever I talk to potential voters who doubt Hillary Clinton (not outright oppose her, mind you, but simply have reservations), I find there are two arguments which are most likely to convince them to develop a more favorable view of her potential presidency. One is the possibility that not turning out to give her an extra vote will help elect Donald Trump; the other is that, when all is said and done, she was the single most influential adviser to one of the most consistently popular presidents in modern history - her husband, William Jefferson Clinton. While the former is great for scaring them away from The Donald, I find that one of the best ways to convince voters to want a term for Hillary is by arguing that it's tantamount to a third one for Bill.

Unfortunately, there is an ongoing trend to convince the general public that they must reevaluate that favorable assessment. While this was predictable given the growing possibility of a Clinton restoration, unfortunately the effort seems to be working. Clinton's current favorability rating has been down to 53-56 percent since the start of the year, despite remaining solidly in the '60s through most of the Obama era. This is especially troubling because Democratic liberals -- often Bernie Sanders supporters -- are contributing to it as well.

Most conspicuous among them right now is author Thomas Frank, who wrote an editorial for Salon criticizing Bill Clinton's presidency for its policies on welfare reform, free trade and expanding America's police state and prison complex.

While these are valid criticisms and deserve to be discussed, there is a pervasive implication that they're also somehow sound reasons for liberals to not vote for the likely Democratic ticket in November. That development would be very dangerous indeed, not only because it deprives Democrats of one of their chief assets in defeating Trump, but because it does a disservice to a legacy that -- though flawed -- still deserves considerable credit.

We can start with Clinton's venerated economic record, which like the rest of his presidency is flawed but still quite impressive. Unemployment fell from above seven percent to less than four, median wages increased, the financial market boomed, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by an average 3.8 percent, inflation stabilized, and poverty declined.

Although extreme poverty began to grow in part because of Clinton's cuts to welfare programs, those reductions were part of a broader policy of fiscal discipline that led to one of the most widely discussed aspects of the Clinton era -- namely, how a Democratic president managed to balance the federal budget and erase the federal deficit.

When it came to foreign policy, it's important to remember that the Clinton administration was a brief period stretching from the end of the Cold War to right before the September 11th attacks. Consequently it was a period of relative geopolitical peace, perhaps the closest to a complete Pax Americana that our nation will ever experience. It was in this climate that Clinton pushed through a range of important social legislation, including raising taxes on the rich (remember that budget surplus?), stopping more than half a million people from getting illegal guns with the Brady Bill, passing the National Violence Against Women Act, creating the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), raised the minimum wage, and guaranteed unpaid leave for all American workers.

Of course, if you read editorials like the one by Frank (an excerpt from his book "Listen, Liberal," which I admittedly have not read), you'd have a much different view of these achievements:

"Why was it, I wondered, that we were supposed to think so highly of him--apart from his obvious personal charm, I mean? It proved difficult for my libs. People mentioned the obvious things: Clinton once raised the minimum wage and expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit. He balanced the budget. He secured a modest tax increase on the rich. And he did propose a national health program, although it didn't get very far and was in fact so poorly designed it could be a model of how not to do big policy initiatives."

The Brady Bill, the National Violence Against Women Act, and the wide range of positive economic indicators aren't mentioned here at all, while his other landmark progressive legislation is dismissed with either glibness or deliberate diminution. Nowhere is there a due appreciation for the fact that Clinton was one of two Democratic presidents in the 40-year-span separating Richard Nixon's first year in office from George W. Bush's last (1969 to 2009).

During that period, American politics underwent a major shift to the right, with the Democratic Party best embodied by the political impotence of presidents like Jimmy Carter and failed candidates like Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis.

Into this scene strode Clinton, a charismatic Democratic president who, despite losing control of Congress two years into his presidency and surviving a trumped up impeachment effort, managed to actually get things done in a prosperous and peaceful America. To all but the most partisan or jaded, this must be acknowledged as a feat of considerable dimension.

This isn't to dismiss the meat of Frank's essay, as most of his criticisms are valid. Clinton did deregulate derivatives and the telecommunication industry, which played a major role in the banking crisis of the late '00s. His successful push for the North American Free Trade Agreement resulted in almost 700,000 jobs being shipped overseas, while his support for so-called "anti-crime" legislation helped make the American police and prison state as hellish as it is today.

That said, disproportionately emphasizing Bill Clinton's mistakes -- at least in the context of this particular presidential election -- risks creating the illusion that Hillary Clinton shouldn't politically benefit from her association with the legacy of his presidency. This would be unfair even if it wasn't an election year, but it becomes borderline suicidal in a contest as serious as this one. The Clinton style of government, however flawed, is being juxtaposed with some pretty frightening alternatives on the Republican side.

I personally view Clinton's achievements as best embodied by Don't Ask, Don't Tell. By forbidding homosexuals from openly serving in the military, it perpetrated a terrible injustice; by eliminating the outright ban on homosexuality in the military, though, it simultaneously constituted an important step forward.

That is the alternative on one side... and Trump is the other. While Trump's quasi-fascism doesn't in its own right redeem Clintonism, it does help put it in a more nuanced perspective. The Clinton presidency, like all presidencies, was very flawed, but that doesn't diminish the good that President Clinton did, even when that good frequently came in a cracked package.

Few American politicians are overwhelmingly good or overwhelmingly bad; most contain a mixture of positive and negative qualities, with the burden falling on voters to discern which ones are more important within the choices presented to them.

For liberals, there are plenty of legitimate criticisms of what Clintonism has stood for in the past, but that doesn't mean we should ignore or diminish the good in the process. If we do that, we risk being just as simplistic in our approach to politics as Trump supporters -- and, in the process, leading America into an Age of Trumpism.

Originally published on The Good Men Project

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Health insurance gains due to Obama’s law, not economy

March 21, 2016, 7:58 am

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WASHINGTON (AP) — There’s growing evidence that most of the nation’s dramatic jump in health care coverage is due to President Barack Obama’s law, and not the gradual economic recovery. That’s going to raise election-year political risks for Republicans who keep campaigning to repeal “Obamacare” without a plausible substitute. Why? Consider GOP front-runner Donald Trump’s […] Reported by Seattle Times 2 hours ago.

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Health Insurance Gains Due to Obama's Law, Not Economy

March 21, 2016, 8:51 am

≫ Next: Is Workplace Wellness 'Establishment' Politics at its Worst?

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Obama's law appears to be driving most of the nation's gains in health insurance Reported by ABCNews.com 52 minutes ago.

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Is Workplace Wellness 'Establishment' Politics at its Worst?

March 21, 2016, 8:09 am

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The "establishment" vs. the "insurgency." The former represents the traditional wings of the parties, while the latter -- the mad-as-hell Trump and Sanders supporters -- hate the cozy relationship between business and government. (True, they express that hatred in far different ways, but that's a topic for others to explore.)

Nothing epitomizes the disconnect between those two wings more than when employers "play doctor" by instituting employee wellness. This bald we-know-what's-good-for-you power grab by the elites is disdained or detested by almost every employee subjected to it. And for good reason -- these programs are hugely intrusive but don't improve health or save money, not even a little. Some are downright dangerous.

Both parties' establishments are at fault here, passing a bipartisan law that allows employers to hire unlicensed vendors to run a myriad of generally useless and occasionally harmful tests on employees. The law permits very little recourse...and proposed new rules will make it even harder for employees to decline this onslaught of overtesting.

By way of background, a typical workplace wellness program involves prying into employees' personal lives by making them fill out an anonymous form detailing their eating and drinking habits, as well as whether they feel depressed. Employees are then lined up to be poked with needles by a vendor hired to tell them how sick they are. Sick or not, they are then prodded to go get checkups, even though the science is quite clear that healthy people shouldn't visit the doctor for no reason. The shorthand for the combination of these three initiatives is: "pry, poke and prod" programs. After they are done being pried, poked and prodded, employees are often told to lose weight -- or forfeit money if they don't.

Wellness companies often refer to their programs as "just plain fun," or something similar. If these privacy-invading anti-employee jihads doesn't sound like fun to you, you're not alone. As we'll see and as mentioned above, most employees hate these programs. Or as my book, Surviving Workplace Wellness, says: "These programs are designed to make employees happy whether they like it or not." (At the risk of sullying the narrative with a nuance, I do need to point out that a few programs succeed, even as thousands fail. Those "outliers" are listed on the Validation Institute website.)

*The "Establishment" View of Workplace Wellness*

No lobbying group likes wellness more than the Business Roundtable, and no lobbying group screams "establishment" more than the Business Roundtable (BRT). While not technically a partisan group, the BRT has made it abundantly clear that their support for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is contingent on "pry, poke and prod" and other wellness programs being front-and-center. One possible explanation for this obsession is that they are truly concerned about the health of their employees.

Or maybe not. Gary Loveman, who headed up the BRT's health-and-wellness program policy group, ran Caesars Entertainment, so he freely exposed his workers to more second-hand smoke than almost other any corporate CEO in the US. The clear deleterious effect of that second-hand smoke on worker health didn't appear to bother him. So instead of moving to a no-smoking policy for Caesars' indoor spaces, he instituted "pry, poke and prod" programs, which he insisted would increase productivity and reduce healthcare costs. He kept insisting this until he ran his company into bankruptcy.

And no wonder. While bad wellness programs were only a minor contributor to Caesars' demise, it is almost universally accepted that wellness loses money. Even the proponents of wellness admit that it's a failure.

That leaves another possible explanation for the BRT's advocacy: it's about the clawbacks. Up to 30% (50% for smokers) of the health insurance coverage required by the ACA can be made contingent on wellness program participation, or actual weight loss. The more unappealing the programs, the lower the participation, and the more money the BRT's member corporations can claw back from employees through fines and forfeited incentives.

Clawbacks were a dirty little secret of wellness, but a vendor called Bravo Wellness spilled the beans. Bravo accidentally mentioned this on its website, though the company took the offending language down once it realized such candor could get them in trouble.

It's not just Bravo. Last week another company urged employers to fine employees who refuse to get useless checkups, fines which they called "immediate savings" for the employer that are "legitimized" by the ACA.

Against all evidence, the BRT still pretends that wellness saves money and is good for employees, whether they like it or not. The BRT cottons no dissent to their viewpoint either. They arranged Senate "hearings" with the title: "Employer Wellness Programs: Better Health Outcomes and Lower Costs." No dissenters were allowed to raise the question of whether wellness actually works. Listen to the proceedings. With no dissenting witnesses invited, 100% of this Senate committee--and likely most of the rest of the Senate and House -- supported workplace wellness, regardless of party affiliation.

*What Employees Really Think*

On the other hand, consider the viewpoints of the actual employees subjected to these "pry, poke and prod" programs. CVS, Penn State and Honeywell would be excellent examples of employee pushback against this kind of program.

More evidence of employee resentment can be found in any list of comments to any article in the lay media on this topic. The occasional favorable comment is usually: "Why should I pay for a fat person's healthcare?" The answers are: (1) Using that logic, why should you pay for someone else to give birth? It's called health insurance; (2) overweight/obese people, during their working years, cost only slightly more than people of normal weight.

The most compelling evidence on employee attitude is simple economics: bribes and fines have surged to $693 on average and yet fewer than half of employees participate, and most of those just do it to collect the bribe or avoid the fine.

Employees' distaste for "pry, poke and prod" programs is not exactly a secret. Many conservative websites with "insurgent" readerships have been posting anti-wellness material for two years: Newsmax, the Federalist, and now Laura Ingraham would be the best examples. Ditto for many left-wing publications and blogs--the Guardian, Mother Jones, and the New York Times' economics bloggers (not "establishment" by any means).

*The Ultimate Disconnect*

Nowhere in politics is the disconnect between voters and politicians this great, even though no healthcare policy affects more people than wellness, with 75-million employees and spouses forced to submit or forfeit money. The political establishment's follow-the-money kowtowing to the BRT ignores not just the sentiment of their constituents, but also the ineffectiveness, bad advice/bad data, and actual hazards of these programs. Forced wellness is the epitome of bad politics and bad economics, all driven by the BRT and fueled by Citizens United. It's time for incumbents and candidates to stand up to the BRT or risk getting thrown out of office in favor of someone who will.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 2 hours ago.

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Fact-Check This: Arrogance Of Elites Helps Drive The Trump Phenomenon

March 21, 2016, 8:15 am

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For some time now most of the people in this country have been under economic pressure. Pay is not going up very much or at all, while living costs keep rising. One recent statistic stands out - 63 percent of Americans would have difficulty raising $500 to cover an emergency, like a sudden need for car repair so they can get to work. Around them the community's roads and schools and services are in decline.

Most of the public can see this clearly, yet so many elites can't see at all, and see it or not, they do little or nothing to make things better. This arrogance of our blind, well-fixed elites is helping drive the Donald Trump phenomenon.

Among the "establishment" - the people "in charge" of our "system," including the news and opinion elites who serve as gatekeepers of information - there is willful blindness to how things have been getting worse for millions of Americans and their communities. They tell the voters they are wrong, that our trade policies are actually good for them.

The voters turn to Trump, who promises he will make it all better, that it will be beautiful.

No one else (except Sanders) is offering hope.

*Magazines Are Good For Us*

A perfect example of that elite blindness is last week's Washington Post "Fact Checker" piece, "Trump's trade rhetoric, stuck in a time warp" by Glenn Kessler.

According to Kessler, Trump "appears to have not been reading newspapers or economic magazines enough to understand that globalization has changed the face of the world economy, for good or bad. In an interconnected world, it's no longer a zero sum game in which jobs are either parked in the United States or overseas."

Right, magazines. That's the ticket. Trump (and his supporters) should read more magazines that publish elites like Kessler, who can use a lot of big words like "globalization" and "interconnected" and tell laid-off workers to suck it up because it's "no longer a zero sum game" and that's that. Too bad for you. If they would only read more magazines they would understand why moving their jobs out of the country is good for all of us.

*The Trade Deficit Is Good For Us*

On Trump's complaints about the trade deficit, Kessler writes, "Trump frequently suggests the United States is 'losing money' when there is a trade deficit, but that reflects a fundamental misunderstanding. Americans want to buy these products from overseas, either because of quality or price."

This is simply an astonishing statement. In 2015, the U.S. had a goods trade deficit of $758.9 billion. We have closed so many factories here and moved the jobs there that we paid out $758.9 billion more for imports than we received from exports. That did not happen because "Americans want to buy these products from overseas"; that happened because the owners of the factories wanted to dodge American wages and environmental protection costs, and move production to places where workers are made to live in barracks, forced to stand for 10 hours, and get paid squat.

*Moving Jobs Out Of The Country Is Good For Us*

Then Kessler gets into the old game of saying that moving the jobs out of the country is good for us because we all get to pay lower prices.

Kessler also says all those jobs aren't gone because we moved millions and millions of jobs out of the country so investors could pay lower wages, pollute all they want and pocket all of the savings; no, the jobs are gone because of "increased productivity."
"The manufacturing sector has declined as a source of jobs in the United States, but again Trump would be fighting against economic shifts long in the making. American manufacturing has becomes incredibly productive, so fewer workers are needed to make the same number of goods."
Kessler makes excuse after excuse, but think back to that $758.9 billion goods trade deficit. Imagine what would happen to the U.S. economy - and to the economic lives of all those Trump supporters - if U.S. manufacturers received $758.9 billion of orders right now. And then another $758.9 billion in orders next year. Think about the factories opening, the workers hired, the wage increases as companies fought to get enough workers, the ripple effect for the suppliers, the stores where people shop and the overall economic health of the communities where these workers live and work.

That is the effect of that trade deficit. It is $758.9 billion of orders our factories are not getting, because that is how much more we are importing than making here.

It isn't about productivity; it's about a $758.9 billion goods trade deficit.

*NAFTA Was Good For Us*

Kessler also explains to ignorant, laid-off auto workers whose jobs were moved to Mexico why this was good for them.
As a result of NAFTA, the United States, Canada and Mexico constitute an economically integrated market, especially for the auto industry. Auto parts and vehicles produced in each country freely flow over the borders, without tariffs or other restrictions, as thousands of part suppliers serve the automakers that build the vehicles. This is known as the "motor vehicle supply chain." In fact, the prospective Ford plant that Trump complains about appears to be intended to produce cars for export from Mexico -- and thus would free up production to produce more trucks in the United States.
Visit Flint, Detroit, other places where workers were laid off and factories were shut down and moved to Mexico. Look at the devastation that resulted, and tell people why this is good for them.

Meanwhile the Mexican auto-worker wage is around $26 a day. That's $26 per day, not per hour. Workers who try to improve conditions are fired. A newspaper Kessler never reads (he reads magazines) reported last year, in "Workers may be losers in Mexico's car boom" on the working conditions for those Mexican auto workers who have those jobs that used to be in Detroit and Flint and similar places.
"They don't treat you with humanity. It was exploitation in general," said Ricardo Gutierrez, 32, who had spent two years at the plant before losing his job. "But there was nothing we could do."

[. . .] For a job with 12-hour days, often including weekends, that paid about $75 a week -- with $3 of that disappearing into union dues -- some decided it was not worth it.

[. . .] "They threatened me. They told me if I didn't sign, nobody was going to give me work, because they were going to tell all the car companies bad things about me," Rodriguez said. "Since then, I've been looking for work. But I can't find anything."
But moving jobs to Mexico was really good for all of us, you see.

*Laying People Off And Rehiring At Low Wages Is Good For Us*

Who doesn't know someone whose job was shipped to China? Or who was threatened with their job being moved if they try to demand a raise? Or who is afraid their job will be shipped to China if they take a sick day or a vacation day.

The American workforce consists of:

1) People whose jobs were moved out of the country, who when took forever to find a new one (if they ever did) and who get paid much less now. In the process, maybe they lost their house or their retirement savings.

2) People who know someone this happened to.

3) People who are afraid this will happen to them. This creates a climate of fear. They don't take vacations or sick days. They take on extra work at nights or weekends. They work "on call," never far from the phone and checking work email into the night. They try to make everyone else look bad so they're not first on the firing line.

4) People who don't get raises as a result of 1, 2 or 3. Meanwhile the cost of living, rent, health insurance co-pays, etc. keeps going up and up. Pressure builds. (Trump beckons...)

5) People who are doing really well, maybe write op-eds for a living, have a great stock portfolio, don't believe 1, 2, 3 or 4 exist at all, and believe "everyone is better off because of free trade." (They also read magazines, apparently.)

The people in categories 1, 2, 3 and 4 are potential Trump voters. People in category 5 just don't get it. Kessler and similar elites are in category 5.

*It's Their Own Fault Anyway*

Our elite class loves to explain to laid-off workers why their woes are their own fault. They don't have a college degree. They should have started their own companies. They're on drugs. They don't know how to program computers. They're too fat or lazy or dim to quickly adapt.

Trump beckons... "There will be so many jobs.""It will be beautiful."

At least New York Times columnist David Brooks doesn't try to arrogantly dismiss the concerns of Trump voters. In last week's "No, Not Trump, Not Ever," he writes,Well, some respect is in order. Trump voters are a coalition of the dispossessed. They have suffered lost jobs, lost wages, lost dreams. The American system is not working for them, so naturally they are looking for something else.

Moreover, many in the media, especially me, did not understand how they would express their alienation. We expected Trump to fizzle because we were not socially intermingled with his supporters and did not listen carefully enough. For me, it's a lesson that I have to change the way I do my job if I'm going to report accurately on this country.
Trump voters are "a coalition of the dispossessed." Government has done nothing for them. Elites: You're not going to stop Trump by telling his voters how wrong they are about the economy and the effects of our country's trade policies. They're not wrong. You are. They're not stuck in a time warp. You are.

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This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF. Sign up here for the CAF daily summary and/or for the Progress Breakfast.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 1 hour ago.

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San Francisco: Transgender inmate planning to have surgery on her own

March 21, 2016, 8:33 am

≫ Next: Health insurance gains due to Obama's law, not economy

≪ Previous: Fact-Check This: Arrogance Of Elites Helps Drive The Trump Phenomenon

A transgender inmate who was paroled after a judge ordered California to pay for her sex reassignment surgery is making plans to have the surgery on her own this summer through coverage provided by the state's low-income health insurance program, she told a California newspaper. Reported by San Jose Mercury News 1 hour ago.

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Health insurance gains due to Obama's law, not economy

March 21, 2016, 8:59 am

≫ Next: Wonkblog: Anthem sues Express Scripts over prescription drug pricing

≪ Previous: San Francisco: Transgender inmate planning to have surgery on her own

WASHINGTON (AP) — There's growing evidence that most of the nation's dramatic jump in health care coverage is due to President Barack Obama's law, and not the gradual economic recovery. A nonpartisan analysis says it would push 20 million people back into the "uninsured" category — a recipe for political backlash. Reported by SeattlePI.com 44 minutes ago.

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Wonkblog: Anthem sues Express Scripts over prescription drug pricing

March 21, 2016, 10:31 am

≫ Next: Health Care, Religion, and the Never Ending Assault on the Affordable Care Act

≪ Previous: Health insurance gains due to Obama's law, not economy

Health insurance company Anthem is suing Express Scripts, the largest prescription drug benefit provider in the U.S., for allegedly charging too much for drugs.The lawsuit, which seeks to recover damages for pharmacy pricing and a declaration of Anthem's right to terminate its contract with Express Scripts, was filed in the southern district of New York. The lawsuit was not immediately available. Reported by Washington Post 1 day ago.

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