CalMatters: California Mental Health Agency On The Hot Seat As Lawmakers Review ‘Groundbreaking’ Law
Three years ago, California leaders passed legislation that promised the most dramatic expansion of mental health and addiction care coverage in decades. As the state’s residents struggled with the stress and trauma of a raging pandemic and a record wildfire season, mental health advocates used words like “groundbreaking” to describe the new law. Finally, they said, California was poised to become a national leader on mental health. (Wiener, 10/17)

Southern California News Group: How LGBTQ Rights And Parental Notification Bills Fared In The California Legislature This Year
School boards across California have begun debating new policies around transgender and gender non-conforming students and other LGBTQ issues. State lawmakers, meanwhile, engaged in their own debate with nearly a dozen bills in the California Legislature this session directly affecting the LGBTQ community, including one that was the model for many of the proposed school board policies this year. (Yarbrough, 10/17)

Modern Healthcare: Medi-Cal Expansion To Undocumented Immigrants To Start January 2024
The success of California's plan to enroll undocumented immigrants in Medicaid could depend on partnerships with community organizations. (Hartnett, 10/17)

New York Post: Photos Show ‘Filth’ At Illegal Chinese-Owned California COVID Lab: 'Happening All Over US'
New photos show the “filth” and unsafe conditions in which an illegal Chinese lab in California carried out risky research on mice genetically altered to carry COVID-19, according to records obtained by a conservative legal group. (Christenson, 10/16)

Stat: Serotonin Levels Are Depleted In Long Covid Patients, Study Says, Pointing To A Potential Cause For ‘Brain Fog’
If you’ve been following the mystery of long Covid since it emerged in 2020, you’ll recall interferons and serotonin have been clues from the start as combatants in the body’s prolonged battles against the virus. Theories about why symptoms persist long after the acute infection has cleared often point to two suspects: viral reservoirs where SARS-CoV-2 lingers and inflammation sparked by the infection that doesn’t subside. (Cooney, 10/16)

MedPage Today: Mixed Signals For Paxlovid And Long COVID Risk In CDC Study
Use of nirmatrelvir-ritonavir (Paxlovid) during the acute phase of COVID-19 appeared to significantly reduce the risk of post-COVID conditions (PCCs) in older adults at high risk for severe disease, but may have increased the risk in adolescents, according to a large case-control study from the CDC. In adults ages 50 and up, the risk of PCCs was lower among those who received nirmatrelvir-ritonavir, with relative risks (RRs) of one or more PCC of 0.91 (95% CI 0.91-0.92) and two or more PCCs of 0.86 (95% CI 0.85-0.87), reported Alexandra Dalton, PhD, of the CDC's Coronavirus and Other Respiratory Viruses Division, during a late-breaking abstract session at the IDWeekopens in a new tab or window annual meeting. (Sullivan, 10/16)

CNN: Price Of Lifesaving Covid-19 Antiviral Paxlovid Expected To Rise Next Year, Raising Concerns About Access
The price of the lifesaving Covid-19 medication Paxlovid is likely to rise next year for most patients as the United States continues to transition out of the emergency phase of the pandemic, sparking concerns among doctors that it will become less accessible. ... The new price – the cost before insurance – hasn’t been set but is expected to be higher than the $530-per-course price paid by the US government. (Tirrell, 10/16)

NBC News: Covid, Flu, RSV Vaccines Urged During Pregnancy But Fewer Want Them, CDC Finds
"We are meeting more resistance than I ever remember," said Dr. Neil Silverman, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at UCLA Health. "We didn't get this kind of pushback on this scale before the pandemic." "Now all vaccines are lumped together as 'bad,'" he said. ... However, a recent CDC report found growing doubts about vaccination during pregnancy. Among almost 2,000 women who were pregnant during the height of last year's cold and flu season or when the survey was conducted in March and April, almost a quarter said they were "very hesitant" about getting a flu shot. (Edwards and Weaver, 10/17)

Reuters: Pfizer CEO Expects 17% Of Americans Will Get New COVID Shots
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said on Monday that he expects about 17% of the U.S. population to get updated COVID-19 vaccines during the current vaccination campaign, in-line with last year. (10/16)

The Bakersfield Californian: Bakersfield Planning Commission Denies VA Clinic Appeal 
The Bakersfield Planning Commission on Monday unanimously struck down an appeal filed by the opposition of the new veterans clinic in Bakersfield. (Donegan, 10/16)

Becker's Hospital Review: How Systems Are Preparing For California's New Minimum Wage
Roseville, Calif.-based Adventist Health said the legislation would affect about 8% of its employees. "Adventist Health has been actively working to develop a systemwide wage grade structure that responds to market changes for all of our associates," the 35-hospital system said in a statement provided to Becker's. "As leaders in California's rural health care, we hope that this legislation will encourage and inspire healthcare associates to look to our organization to join, improving staffing and access to care in these critical areas of the state." (Gooch and Thomas, 10/16)

Modern Healthcare: Healthcare Professionals Fleeing Industry, New Data Show
More than 145,000 healthcare practitioners left the industry from 2021 through 2022, threatening access and quality, according to a report published Monday. Physicians accounted for roughly half of the healthcare workers who retired or changed professions over the two-year span, according to an analysis of all-payer claims data from Definitive Healthcare, a healthcare commercial intelligence company. More than 71,000 physicians left the workforce from 2021 to 2022. (Kacik, 10/16)

Stat: Is There Really A Nursing Shortage In The U.S.? 
Hospitals are frustrated with a nationwide nursing shortage that’s only gotten worse since the pandemic. In 2022, the American Hospital Association quoted an estimate that half a million nurses would leave the field by the end of that year, bringing the total shortage to 1.1 million. At the same time, National Nurses United insists there isn’t a nurse shortage at all. There are plenty enough nurses for the country, they say — merely a shortage of nurses who want to work under current conditions. (Trang, 10/16)

CNN: Why CVS, Walgreens And Rite Aid Are Closing Thousands Of Stores 
Drugstore chains for decades saturated US cities, suburbs and small towns with new stores. Now, they are closing thousands of stores, leaving gaps in communities for medicines and essentials. Researchers find pharmacy closures lead to health risks such as older adults failing to take medication. (Meyersohn, 10/17)

Modern Healthcare: Rite Aid Bankruptcy Could Mean Pivot Into Healthcare Services
As Rite Aid seeks Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, some industry watchers say the company's restructuring plans could be an opportunity for big strategy changes. Rite Aid filed for bankruptcy Sunday after being unable to resolve financial woes and opioid-related lawsuits. It has shuttered hundreds of stores in recent years and is expected to close more. Rite Aid also is selling pharmacy benefit manager Elixir Solutions to MedImpact, another PBM, for $575 million. (Hudson, 10/16)

Modern Healthcare: Prior Authorization Cuts From Cigna, UnitedHealth Meet Skepticism
Providers are lobbying Congress, investing in new technologies and renegotiating contracts with insurers in response to rising prior authorization demands—despite of some of the largest carriers promising to cut back on preapproval rules. Their tactics highlight provider skepticism of moves by UnitedHealth Group, Cigna, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and other insurers to lift some precertification requirements. Providers question whether these new policies will actually reduce administrative burden or if insurers are mostly engaged in a public relations campaign to forestall government intervention. (Tepper, 10/16)

NPR: Medicare Shoppers Often Face A Barrage Of Unsolicited Calls And Aggressive Ads
One minute last December Leslie Montgomery was a medieval warlord pillaging a nearby kingdom. The next she was a retiree drowning in a flood of confusing Medicare sales calls. The 75-year-old had been deeply immersed in her favorite free online game when a banner ad appeared warning her that she might be missing out on money from the federal government. She clicked, and within minutes, she received an avalanche of calls with health insurance quotes she had never requested. ( Walker and Gorenstein, 10/16)

Forbes: The Inflation Reduction Act Has Made This Year’s Medicare Open Enrollment More Important Than Ever
Do an internet search on the Inflation Reduction Act. You’ll find several sites that mention deficit and carbon emissions reduction, investment in domestic energy production, and Medicare prescription drug negotiation. Buried somewhere in the text of the act is one change that will have an immediate impact in 2024: the elimination of the 5% coinsurance in the Catastrophic Coverage drug payment stage. Most probably have no idea what this means. Briefly: Those who take costly brand name drugs and spend about $3,300 out-of-pocket will reach Catastrophic Coverage, the fourth payment stage of a Part D drug plan. Once there, they will not pay another cent for prescription drugs in 2024. (Omdahl, 10/16)

Modern Healthcare: Aetna, Humana See Medicare Advantage Star Rating Boosts
In the aftermath of unwelcome but not surprising news for the health insurance industry about Medicare Advantage star ratings for next year, insurers cited stricter government standards as they look to move forward. On Friday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services revealed which Medicare Advantage plans earned four or five stars under the quality assessment program and confirmed months of anxiety among health insurers that expected lower scores—and the revenue hits that come from losing lucrative bonus payments. (Tepper, 10/16)

CBS News: "Melanie's Law" Enacted To Prevent Fentanyl Overdoses In California Schools
Middle and high school students across California will be protected by a new law requiring life-saving prevention and response resources for fentanyl overdoses under legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday. Newsom announced on Friday that he had signed Senate Bill 10 or Melanie's Law, introduced by Sen. Dave Cortese, D-San Jose, which aims to prevent and respond to youth fentanyl overdoses through mandated school safety plans requiring prevention, response, training, education and awareness. (10/16)

Bay Area News Group: Here's What California Schools Must Now To Do Prep For An Opioid Overdose
In a sign of deepening concern in Sacramento over the fentanyl crisis, Gov. Newsom signed a raft of bills into law this month aimed at curbing deaths caused by the powerful opioid that killed a record 6,095 Californians last year. (Nickerson, 10/17)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Man Who Died In Sheriff's Custody Was Sent Back To Cell Instead Of ER, Outside Investigation Finds 
Minutes before Jerrell Dwayne Lacy was found unconscious in his Central Jail cell last year, an unidentified nurse was alarmed by the results of his electrocardiogram. The nurse was about to call 911 so Lacy could be moved to a hospital emergency room. But someone told San Diego sheriff’s deputies that Lacy was instead cleared to return to the jail’s housing module. (McDonald, 10/17)

AP: New Vaccine Expected To Give Endangered California Condors Protection Against Deadly Bird Flu 
Antibodies found in early results of a historic new vaccine trial are expected to give endangered California condors at least partial protection from the deadliest strain of avian influenza in U.S. history. The California condor is the only bird species in the U.S. that has been approved for the new emergency-use vaccine, which was administered this summer to condors bred in captivity during a trial at the Los Angeles Zoo, the San Diego Zoo Safari Park and the Oregon Zoo. (Dazio, 10/16)

New York Post: Renting Can Age You Faster Than Smoking, Obesity: Study
The stresses of renting a home can age people faster than if they are obese, smoked or were unemployed, a new study indicates. Struggling to pay rent, dealing with the hassles of moving and even the mere stigma of renting can cause tenants to age two and a half weeks faster for every year renting, according to The British Medical Journal’s Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. (Bardolf, 10/14)

MedPage Today: Abortion Info Buried On Many Hospitals' Websites, Study Shows 
Hospitals and their health systems are not advertising abortion in a way that is consistent with other common outpatient procedures, a cross-sectional observational study of U.S. hospital websites showed. Of the 222 patient-facing websites sampled, 79.4% did not mention abortion, while only 11.1% did not mention colonoscopy, reported Ari Friedman, MD, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia, and co-authors. Websites described offering abortion care 6.3% of the time compared with 85.6% for colonoscopy, they noted in the Annals of Internal Medicine. (Robertson, 10/16)

Stat: Measuring The Long-Term Cost Of Restricting Abortion Access
When Diana Greene Foster and her team at the University of California, San Francisco, started their study on the lives of women who were denied abortions in 2008, they sought to investigate a rather commonly held view: That having an abortion hurt women’s mental and physical health, including by leading to PTSD and drug and alcohol use disorder. (Merelli, 10/17)

CNN: FDA Takes ‘Momentous’ Step Toward Banning Menthol Cigarettes And Flavored Cigars
The US Food and Drug Administration took a “momentous” step Monday toward banning menthol in cigarettes and banning flavored cigars, proposing a rule that public health experts say could save hundreds of thousands of lives. (Christensen, 10/16)

The New York Times: F.D.A. Plans To Ban Hair Straighteners With Formaldehyde 
The Food and Drug Administration has proposed banning hair-straightening products that contain or emit formaldehyde, more than a decade after the cosmetic industry’s own experts declared the products unsafe. Frequent use of chemical hair straighteners has been linked to a possible increase in the risk of developing cancer of the uterus, which is also called endometrial cancer. Women who use the products often face more than twice the risk of those who do not. (Rabin and Jewett, 10/16)