LAist: Orange County Internal Investigation Finds COVID Testing Partner Double Billed
Orange County’s COVID-19 testing partner during the pandemic, 360 Clinic, was double and — at least once — triple billing for services carried out under a county contract, according to an internal investigation report reviewed by LAist. The county report also states that a $523,650 payment that 360 Clinic issued to the county went missing for over three years. A company spokesperson told LAist its chief financial officer delivered a cashier’s check to the county in December 2020. LAist reviewed a copy of that check provided by a company spokesperson. The county says it never received it. (Replogle, 6/17)

Orange County Register: OC Health Care Official Calls For Full Audit Of County’s Dealings With 360 Clinic
The Orange County Health Care Agency’s top compliance officer is calling for a forensic audit of the county’s dealings with its former COVID testing vendor after a review showed evidence of overbilling by the company. The review found that the county repeatedly paid vendor 360 Health Plan, doing business as 360 Clinic, more than once for the same claim as well as for services already paid for by insurance companies. (Saavedra, 6/17)

Becker's Hospital Review: California System CEO To Retire
Gary Herbst, CEO of Visalia, Calif.-based Kaweah Health, will retire June 30, 2026, concluding a 34-year career with the organization. ... During his tenure, Mr. Herbst is credited with playing a key role in the organization’s transformation from a small community hospital into a regional medical and trauma center. (Gooch, 6/17)

Becker's Hospital Review: Fugitive Physician Sentenced To Prison For $1.5M Medicare Fraud Scheme
A physician from Porter Ranch, Calif., was sentenced to 54 months in prison for falsifying home health certifications and fraudulently billing Medicare. Lilit Baltaian, MD, was sentenced after pleading guilty in November to one count of healthcare fraud, according to a June 12 Justice Department news release. She is a fugitive and was sentenced in absentia. (Cass, 6/17)

Becker's Hospital Review: University Of California Health Data Chief Dies
Atul Butte, MD, PhD, who served as chief data scientist of Oakland-based University of California, died June 13 at the age of 55. He was also the inaugural director of the San Francisco-based UCSF Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute and the co-founder of the Center for Data-driven Insights and Innovation, helping unify data across University of California Health’s six academic medical centers. He had been fighting cancer, friends and colleagues posted on social media. (Bruce, 6/17)

Becker's Hospital Review: Top Global Universities For Healthcare Research: US News
U.S. News & World Report published its 11th annual Best Global Universities rankings June 17, evaluating 2,250 top institutions across 105 countries based on their global and regional research reputation and academic research performance. ... In addition to the overall ranking, there are 51 subject rankings, including some that are healthcare-related, each with their own weighting based on academic research performance in that area. (Gooch, 6/17)

San Francisco Chronicle: San Francisco Seeks Proposals For Housing Violence, Abuse Survivors
Homeless women in San Francisco face different challenges than men — a majority became homeless due to domestic violence and other forms of abuse, and an estimated 75% experience continued violence on the streets or in shelters. And yet, of the more than 3,000 shelter beds in the city, only about 100 are earmarked for women and people identifying as women, according to the city’s own surveys. City leaders recently aimed to address that gap by requiring that 10% of a $300 million affordable housing bond that was placed on the ballot last year be used for the construction or renovation of housing for women experiencing homelessness and abuse. (Waxmann, 6/17)

Sacramento Bee: Can Sacramento Churches Fill The Gap In Homelessness Aid?
Standing in the middle of 11th Street with a reflective neon-green vest, Marilynn Fairgood looked more like a crossing guard than a church volunteer. Fairgood runs the Brown Bag Lunch program at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, which distributes free sack lunches to Sacramento’s homeless population four days a week. Earlier this month, she scanned the line, which extended down and beyond K Street, to ensure that visitors were in a neat order. Once satisfied, she closed her eyes, said a quick Our Father prayer and returned to a folding table where six volunteers began distributing 149 bags of corn dogs, fruit cups and peanut butter crackers. (Rodriquez-Vars, 6/18)

San Francisco Chronicle: Is California Behind On Psychedelic Research For Addiction?
In recent years, researchers have expressed renewed optimism that psychedelics can be used in therapeutic settings to help treat addiction and mental illness, intertwined crises that have devastated Californians. Yet, the Golden State is falling behind Republican-led states like Texas and Indiana in expanding research on these promising therapies. (Angst, 6/17)

Stat: RFK Jr., FDA Eye Psychedelics For Mental Health Treatment
Eight months after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. declared that the Food and Drug Administration’s “aggressive suppression of psychedelics” was about to end, he and his newfound allies in the Trump administration are in a position to do something about it. (Goldhill and Keshavan, 6/18)

NPR: U.S. Overdose Deaths Rise After Hopeful Decline
For the first time in more than a year, street drug deaths appear to be rising across the U.S. according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The latest available data, compiled in January of this year, shows fatal overdoses over the previous 12-month period increased by roughly 1,400 deaths. (Mann, 6/18)

CBS News: Cannabis Use Linked To A Doubled Risk Of Heart Disease Death, New Study Finds
With growing marijuana use across the country, studies have looked at the link between cannabis use and cardiovascular problems — but new research is showing the magnitude of such risk. In the study, published Tuesday in the journal Heart, researchers found cannabis use is linked to a doubled risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, a 29% higher risk for acute coronary syndrome and 20% higher risk for stroke. The authors analyzed data from 24 studies published from 2016 to 2023. (Moniuszko, 6/17)

Modern Healthcare: GOP Tax Plan Would Cost Healthcare $1T: CBO
A new analysis of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 concludes the economic benefits of its tax breaks would be outweighed by its costs over time and confirms the healthcare sector faces a hefty $1 trillion loss. Although cuts to Medicaid, the health insurance exchanges and other programs, and some economic growth would partially offset its $3.7 trillion price tag, the bill would increase the federal budget deficit by $2.8 trillion over 10 years, according to a report the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation issued Tuesday. (McAuliff, 6/17)

Politico: Hospitals Stunned By Senate GOP’s Medicaid Plan
One of the most powerful lobbies in Washington is redoubling its efforts to avoid a cut to Medicaid payments in the GOP’s megabill. Hospital executives weren’t happy last month when the House included a provision in its version of the bill freezing a loophole states have used to boost payments to hospitals serving the low-income patients enrolled in Medicaid. Hospitals have long enjoyed deference from lawmakers — since they both care for and employ their constituents. (King, Oprysko, Carney and Chu, 6/17)

Bloomberg: Senate Tax Bill Lacks Votes As Republican Leaders Seek SALT Cap, Medicaid Deals
Republican leaders are aiming for quick negotiations over needed changes to the newly unveiled Senate tax bill which lacks the votes to secure majorities in both chambers as written. The prospect of prolonged talks with holdouts in both the conservative and moderate wings of the party threaten Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s goal of passing President Donald Trump’s tax-cut legislation by July 4. (Wasson, Diaz, and Dennis, 6/17)

The Hill: Mehmet Oz To Pitch GOP Senators On Need For Medicaid Changes
Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, is scheduled to speak to Republican senators at lunch Tuesday on the need to reform Medicaid, according to a GOP source familiar with the schedule. Oz is expected to speak in detail about the need to protect the program for low-income families, the elderly and the disabled, and what the administration views as current abuses of the program, such as people in the country without authorization receiving Medicaid benefits. (Bolton, 6/17)

The Washington Post: Healthcare.Gov Fraud Fuels GOP Attempt To Cut Affordable Care Act
Millions are fraudulently receiving health insurance subsidized by the federal government, according to a new conservative think tank report to be released Tuesday, as Republicans move to tighten controls on Healthcare.gov and limit enrollment. The Biden administration’s attempts to make it easier for people to sign up for insurance through the federal marketplace website also allowed insurance brokers to commit fraud, experts across the political spectrum agree. Those brokers were able to enroll people, sometimes without their knowledge, for subsidized plans by misstating their incomes, while earning commissions from insurers. (Winfield Cunningham, 6/17)

Axios: Tariffs Drive Some Health Plans To Hike Premiums
Health insurers are starting to notify states that tariffs will drive up the premiums they plan to charge individual and small group market enrollees next year. (Goldman, 6/18)

Bloomberg: FDA Announces New Vouchers To Cut Drug Reviews To Two Months
The US Food and Drug Administration announced a new national priority voucher plan that aims to cut drug review times to one to two months for companies it says are backing national interests. The Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher program is intended to slash review times from the current average of 10 to 12 months, the agency said in a statement on Tuesday. In the first year of the program, the FDA plans to give a limited number of vouchers to companies “aligned with U.S. national priorities,” it said. (Amponsah, 6/17)

Stat: CDC Leaders Rally Troops, Sidestep Controversy In All-Hands Meeting 
In their first all-staff meeting since the start of the Trump administration, the interim leadership of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention attempted to sidestep controversy and rally troops at the storied but demoralized agency on Tuesday. (Branswell, 6/17)

MedPage Today: Patient Safety Network Papers Restored Amid Lawsuit From Doctors
Papers removed from a government patient safety website earlier this year have been restored. The reappearance of the papers comes amid a lawsuit challenging their removal from the Patient Safety Network (PSNet), which has existed as part of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) under HHS. (Henderson, 6/17)

Bloomberg: General Mills Is Latest Packaged-Food Company To Remove Dyes
Packaged-food maker General Mills Inc. is joining Kraft Heinz Co. in removing synthetic food dyes from its US products by the end of 2027 — a move that will eliminate ingredients such as Red 40 and Yellow 5 from its brightly colored cereals. The Minneapolis-based company said it will remove the colorants from US cereals and foods served in schools by the summer of next year. The company will also “work to remove certified colors from its full US retail portfolio by the end of 2027.” (Kubzansky, 6/17)