San Francisco Chronicle: California Hospitals Sue Insurer Anthem For Delayed Patient Discharges
When a 77-year-old woman was nearly ready to be discharged recently from Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital in Valencia after being treated for a femur fracture following a fall, her doctors recommended that she go to a skilled nursing facility to recover. They were told by the woman’s health insurer that it could take up to two weeks to authorize the move, said Vicki White, the hospital’s chief nursing officer. Four days later, they tried contacting the insurer again, only to be told to continue waiting. (Ho, 4/23)

CalMatters: CA Hospitals Sue Anthem Insurance, Allege Treatment Delays
Medical insurance delays can keep someone in a hospital bed much longer than they need to be waiting for after-care services like home health care. Those delays can also block hospitals from using beds needed for new patients. California hospitals have long complained about those delays, and in a new lawsuit, they’re suing one of the state’s largest health insurers to force it to speed its approvals of secondary treatment. (Hwang, 4/23)

Becker's Hospital Review: 41 Hospitals, Health Systems Among Forbes' Best Employers For Diversity
Forbes released its seventh annual ranking of the nation's best employers for diversity on April 23, and the rankings include 41 hospitals and health systems. The rankings, a partnership between the media company and Statista, are based in part on a survey of 170,000 people working for organizations with at least 1,000 employees within the U.S. Survey respondents rated their own employers, in addition to companies they knew well through their industry or through friends and family members employed there. (Gooch, 4/23)

Stat: Anticompetitive Hospital Mergers Skate By Due To FTC’s Shallow Resources
Over the past two decades, hundreds of hospital mergers have escaped federal antitrust scrutiny and led to both higher prices and less competition, a new study shows. (Herman, 4/24)

San Francisco Chronicle: Oracle Plans To Move Headquarters To Nashville, Four Years After Departing Bay Area
Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison announced on Tuesday that the company is relocating its world headquarters to Nashville as part of a strategic move aimed at being closer to the epicenter of the healthcare industry. The move follows the tech giant’s previous relocation from Silicon Valley to Austin, Texas. (Vaziri, 4/23)

Becker's Hospital Review: Hospitals Slam FTC's Noncompete Ban
The Federal Trade Commission on April 23 voted 3-2 to ban noncompete agreements in a move it estimates will save up to $194 billion in healthcare costs over the next decade. Though the FTC recognized that it does not have jurisdiction over nonprofit entities, it reserved the right to evaluate an entity's nonprofit status, which would include a significant portion of the 6,120 hospitals in the U.S. Specifically, the agency said that "some portion of the 58% of hospitals that claim tax-exempt status as nonprofits and the 19% of hospitals that are identified as state or local government hospitals in the data cited by [American Hospital Association] likely fall under the commission's jurisdiction and the final rule's purview." (Condon, 4/23)

Stat: How The FTC's Noncompete Agreement Ban Could Impact Health Care 
The Federal Trade Commission approved a far-reaching noncompete ban Tuesday that could force sweeping changes across the health care industry. But those changes may not take effect for years — if they ever do — because the contentious rule will almost certainly be held up in litigation. (Bannow, 4/23)

Stat: NIH Raises Minimum Salary For Postdoctoral Researchers 
The National Institutes of Health will raise the minimum salary for postdoctoral researchers to $61,008 next year, the agency announced Tuesday, responding to growing calls from young life scientists to provide a living wage. The 8% pay bump is far short of the increase to $70,000 that was recommended by an NIH working group late last year. But the agency noted in a press release that it’s the largest year-over-year update for NIH-funded postdocs since 2017. (Gaffney, 4/23)

Times of San Diego: Big City Mayors, Led By Todd Gloria, Advocate For Homeless, Housing In Sacramento
A coalition of mayors from the state’s largest cities, including San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, Tuesday visited Sacramento to urge Gov. Gavin Newsom and the legislature to make permanent funding homelessness services across California. The Big City Mayors coalition, chaired by Gloria, requested Newsom and legislators avoid making cuts to the Homelessness Housing, Assistance and Prevention program and commit to funding it at $1 billion a year going forward. (Ireland, 4/23)

Voice of San Diego: What We Know About The Pollution Below Mayor Gloria’s Mega-Shelter Site
The state says Mayor Todd Gloria’s team needs to dig deeper into the property he wants to make into a mega-shelter, citing concerns there could be unknown contamination from a shuttered chemical plant next door. California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control says it will work with the city to do “additional investigation” into the ground below the former print shop Gloria wants to turn into a shelter along Kettner Boulevard, according to an email Tuesday from spokesperson Elizabeth Leslie-Gassaway. (Elmer and Halverstadt, 4/24)

Los Angeles Times: Carson Sheriff's Deputies Shot Homeless Man In Back, Lawsuit Alleges
Attorneys for the family of a 34-year-old homeless man who they say was fatally shot by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies while on his knees have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the county. Lawyers allege in the lawsuit that deputies used excessive force when they shot Arturo Cernas four times in the back outside a gas station in Carson. The lawsuit also says the deputies failed to render aid immediately and failed to use proper tactics to de-escalate the situation. (Vives, 4/23)

Bay Area News Group: Tenant Advocates In This Bay Area City Are Close To Putting Rent Control On The Ballot
Tenant advocates in San Pablo are one step closer to getting rent control on the ballot this November. On Tuesday, advocates submitted to the city more than 1,500 signatures needed to bring a measure to cap rent increases and add renter protections before voters. Officials will now seek to verify the signatures. (Varian, 4/23)

Los Angeles Times: Lawsuit Accuses Newport Beach Fertility Clinic Of Poisoning Embryos
For two weeks in January, a Newport Beach fertility lab had a zero-percent rate of successful implantation, allegedly because embryos were exposed to hydrogen peroxide or another caustic chemical, according to a lawsuit filed this week on behalf of nine couples. More than a dozen embryos were already nonviable when the lab, Ovation Fertility, implanted them into the would-be mothers, said the lawsuit, which accuses the lab of negligence. The “catastrophic error” occurred between Jan. 18 and Jan. 30, according to the plaintiffs’ lawyers, though Ovation allegedly waited a month to tell the patients’ physicians that something went wrong. The normal success rate for high-grade embryos of this type, the lawsuit says, is around 80%. (Goffard, 4/23)

KVPR: Supreme Court To Examine A Federal-State Conflict Over Emergency Abortions
The Supreme Court hears yet another abortion case on Wednesday. This one tests whether a state can prevent a pregnant woman from receiving what her doctors say is essential medical treatment, including the termination of a pregnancy, if her health, but not her life, is in grave danger. (Totenberg, 4/24)

The New York Times: Abortion Data Wars: States And Cities Debate How Much Information To Collect 
In the fierce debate over abortion in the United States, the subject of data collection might seem wonky and tangential. But the information that state and city governments collect about abortion patients is becoming another flashpoint in the country’s bitter divide over the issue. Some states with Republican-controlled legislatures have moved to require more information about each abortion, while some states where Democrats dominate are reducing the information they collect, fearing that it may be used to identify patients or to prosecute abortion providers. (Belluck and Fitzsimmons, 4/23)

East Bay Times: Sammy’s Law In California Seeks To Protect Youth From Social Media Drug Sales
On Feb. 7, 2021, Sammy Berman Chapman, 16, was silently killed in his Santa Monica home. The culprit: a fentanyl-laced pill the teen had purchased on social media. (Harter, 4/23)

Politico: Xavier Becerra Plots His Political Future After Biden Administration
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra’s plans to leave the Biden administration and run for California governor are more advanced than previously known — with hiring discussions and spending further developed than he’s letting on. Not only has Becerra had conversations over the past weeks about making the move, he or emissaries have approached political firms about standing up a gubernatorial campaign to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2026, two people briefed on those discussions told POLITICO. (Cadelago and Lippman, 4/23)

Military.com: VA's PACT Act Management Could Use Lessons From 9/11 First Responders Legislation, Rand Says 
The Department of Veterans Affairs should be concerned about the lack of input from veterans and family members in decisions related to the PACT Act, as well as the absence of strong scientific processes to determine new presumptive conditions, analysts with a California-based think tank said Tuesday in a new report. But the VA could find potential fixes in legislation passed to aid 9/11 responders and survivors who were exposed to environmental hazards after the terrorist attacks in 2001, Rand Corp. said in the report. Those earlier laws included beneficiaries in decisions and mandated robust research. (Kime, 4/23)

Military.com: Military Women At Greater Risk Of Having Babies With Low Birth Weight, Scientific Review Finds 
Women in the military could have a higher risk of giving birth to low-weight babies than their civilian counterparts, according to a scientific review published this week. The review, which analyzed 21 separate studies of pregnancies in the U.S. military from 1979 to 2023, found that about two-thirds of the studies concluded that active-duty servicewomen may be at heightened risk of having babies with a low birth weight. (Kheel, 4/23)

Los Angeles Times: Los Angeles Makes Progress But Earns 25th-Straight F In Air Quality
Despite California’s reputation for groundbreaking clean-air rules, Greater Los Angeles is the smoggiest region in the nation — a dubious title it has earned in 24 out of 25 reports from the American Lung Assn. And the streak continues, as several Southland counties earned F grades for the 25th consecutive time from the group, which released its latest report Wednesday. (Briscoe, 4/24)

Times of San Diego: California Leads 'Blue State' Battle Over EPA Auto Emissions Rules
A group of 22 states led by California and four cities are backing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency‘s new tailpipe emissions rules after 25 Republican-led states sued last week. The lawsuit filed Thursday challenges the 2027-2032 model year EPA vehicle emissions rules that aim to cut fleetwide tailpipe emissions for cars and light trucks by nearly 50% over 2026 levels in 2032. (Jennewein, 4/23)

Los Angeles Blade: 90 Percent Of Trans Youth Live In States Restricting Their Rights
According to a new report by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, 93% of transgender youth aged 13 to 17 in the U.S. — approximately 280,300 youth — live in states that have proposed or passed laws restricting their access to health care, sports, school bathrooms and facilities, or the use of gender-affirming pronouns. In some regions, a large percentage of transgender youth live in a state that has already enacted one of these laws. About 85% of transgender youth in the South and 40% of transgender youth in the Midwest live in one of these states. (4/23)

The New York Times: New Study Bolsters Idea Of Athletic Differences Between Men And Trans Women 
A new study financed by the International Olympic Committee found that transgender female athletes showed greater handgrip strength — an indicator of overall muscle strength — but lower jumping ability, lung function and relative cardiovascular fitness compared with women whose gender was assigned female at birth. That data, which also compared trans women with men, contradicted a broad claim often made by proponents of rules that bar transgender women from competing in women’s sports. It also led the study’s authors to caution against a rush to expand such policies, which already bar transgender athletes from a handful of Olympic sports. (Longman, 4/23)

VOA: White House Updates National Suicide Prevention Strategy
The White House on Tuesday unveiled an updated national strategy on suicide prevention that includes more emphasis on health equity and diversity and the mental-health impact of social media, revising its decade-old plan amid a national rise in suicide rates. American health professionals told VOA a national plan is essential to tackling the problem. "The new national strategy focuses on a "whole of society" approach, which is unique —and critical — because no single entity alone can reduce suicide rates. But together, we have a real opportunity for impact," Hannah Wesolowski, chief advocacy officer of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, told VOA in an email. (Powell, 4/23)

AP: Ashley Judd And Aloe Blacc Help The White House Unveil Its National Suicide Prevention Strategy 
Actor Ashley Judd and singer-songwriter Aloe Blacc, who both lost loved ones to suicide, on Tuesday helped the Biden administration promote its new national strategy to prevent suicide. Judd’s mother, country star Naomi Judd, died nearly two years ago. Blacc’s frequent collaborator, Tim Bergling, died in 2018.Both were on hand as Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, helped unveil the Democratic administration’s blueprint for reducing suicides in the United States. Some 132 people a day kill themselves, he said. “We’re here today because we know that we can and will change this,” Emhoff said. “Suicide is preventable.” (Superville, 4/23)

San Diego Union-Tribune: County Warns Of Counterfeit Botox After San Diego Woman Contracts Botulism
The San Diego County health department is warning the public to avoid Botox obtained online or injected by unlicensed providers after a 43-year-old woman suffered symptoms after buying a counterfeit dose of the wrinkle-reducing neurotoxin. (Sisson, 4/23)

AP: Remnants Of Bird Flu Virus Found In Pasteurized Milk, FDA Says 
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that samples of pasteurized milk had tested positive for remnants of the bird flu virus that has infected dairy cows. The agency stressed that the material is inactivated and that the findings “do not represent actual virus that may be a risk to consumers.” Officials added that they’re continuing to study the issue. “To date, we have seen nothing that would change our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe,” the FDA said in a statement. (Aleccia, 4/23)

Stat: H5N1 Flu Virus Outbreak In Cows Likely Started Earlier Than Thought 
The H5N1 bird flu outbreak in dairy cows in the United States has likely been going on for months longer than was previously realized, and has probably spread more widely across the country than the confirmed outbreaks would imply, according to an analysis of genetic sequences that were released Sunday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. (Branswell, 4/23)

CIDRAP: Scientists Find Clues In Early Analysis Of Newly Shared US H5N1 Avian Flu Sequences
Analysis of the hemagglutinin, neuraminidase, and internal genes hints that the virus hasn't changed much from its introduction into cattle in late 2023 or 2024, said Michael Worobey, head of the ecology and evolutionary biology department at the University of Arizona at Tucson. There's a strong possibility that the virus has been circulating undetected for months, even before a mysterious illness began affecting dairy cows in February, Worobey said. "This reveals massive gaps in our pathogen and surveillance system." (Schnirring, 4/23)

CNN: Scientists Say USDA Is Sharing Too Little Data Too Slowly On H5N1 Flu
When the US Department of Agriculture announced late Sunday that it had publicly posted new data from its investigation into a bird flu outbreak in cattle, scientists eagerly searched a well-known platform used globally to share the genetic sequences of viruses. The sequences weren’t there. As of Tuesday morning, they still aren’t. (Goodman, 4/23)

Stat: Can We Make Enough H5N1 Bird Flu Vaccine If There's A Pandemic? 
The unsettling reality of H5N1 bird flu circulating in dairy cow herds in multiple parts of the United States is raising anxiety levels about whether this dangerous virus, which has haunted the sleep of people who worry about influenza pandemics for more than 20 years, could be on a path to acquiring the ability to easily infect people. (Branswell, 4/24)