Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Deal Struck To End 10-Week Kaiser Permanente Mental Health Worker Strike
Kaiser Permanente and the National Union of Healthcare Workers inked a proposed four-year contract Tuesday, ending the 10-week standoff between mental health workers and the Oakland-based integrated health system. (Kacik, 10/18)
In other health care industry news —
More than a 10-fold gap exists between the highest and lowest negotiated price for common imaging services provided at the same hospital, new research shows. (Kacik, 10/18)
A crippling ransomware attack on the second-largest U.S. nonprofit health system is showing how much patients can be left in the dark when critical health care infrastructure goes down. (Reed, 10/18)
The Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal from Molina Healthcare that would have ended a False Claims Act lawsuit brought by a former business partner and could have raised the bar for future whistleblower cases. (Tepper, 10/18)
Two summers ago, Lee Berger sat in her Macon County, N.C., home hunched over a laptop — pulling the small computer closer to her face. It was Berger’s first telehealth appointment, a routine check-up with her primary care physician, and she couldn’t hear what the doctor was saying. Berger thought about telling the doctor to speak up, but then she remembered her house, fastened at the end of a 17-house subdivision in the small town of Franklin, doesn’t often invite steady internet connection. (Harris, 10/18)
