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People with private Medicare coverage may not be getting the mental health services they need because they cannot find a psychiatrist within their plan’s network, according to a new study. More than half of the counties the researchers studied did not have a single psychiatrist participating in a Medicare Advantage plan, the private-sector counterpart to traditional Medicare. Some 30 million people, just over half of all participants in the federal program, are enrolled in these private plans. (Abelson, 7/5)

Eli Lilly & Co. became the world’s biggest health-care company by market value, surging ahead of health insurance giant UnitedHealth Group Inc. The drugmaker gained 0.9% on Wednesday, extending its advance after four straight months of gains while adding more than $94 billion to its value this year. Lilly ended June at a record high. (Adegbesan, 7/5)

A new entree is on the menu for premature and fragile infants in Henry Ford Jackson Hospital: donated breast milk, made available through the health center’s freshly opened milk bank. The bank is only the second one in Michigan to be accredited by the Human Milk Banking Association of North America — and only the 32nd on the continent. (Brookland, 7/5)

Breakthrough research at Nationwide Children's Hospital has produced a long-awaited treatment for a rare genetic disorder seen in young kids. The FDA recently approved Elevidys, the first gene therapy meant to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) in 4- and 5-year-old patients. (Buchanan, 7/5)

Nurses entering the workforce have access to more job opportunities than prior generations, putting many in a position to seek more specialized roles and higher pay. At the same time, nurses who received the bulk of their training during the COVID-19 pandemic have less hands-on experience, which can make them more prone to burning out. As experienced nurses retire and new ones come aboard, employers are offering competitive pay, career development opportunities and individualized support to recruit and retain clinicians. (Devereaux, 7/5)

Mercy Philadelphia Hospital was planning on shutting down. Losing Mercy, a safety-net hospital serving a predominantly low-income and Black community, would have created a health care desert in West Philadelphia. “It would have been easy for us to just absorb it into our existing hospital beds,” said Kevin Mahoney, CEO of the University of Pennsylvania Health System. “But we thought it was wrong that patients in a poor part of town would have to travel two bus routes, 20 city blocks.” (Bajaj, 7/6)

One of Maine’s major insurers and a Catholic health care system with hospitals in the state reached an agreement Wednesday after months of negotiations that left about 14,000 patients with questions about the future of their health care. Covenant Health, a family of Catholic health care organizations in New England and part of Pennsylvania, announced that it struck a “multi-year agreement” with insurer Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield. The contract will last through 2025, spokesperson Karen Sullivan said. (Royzman, 7/5)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: How Health Care May Be Affected By The High Court’s Affirmative Action Ruling 

Doctors are concerned that a Supreme Court ruling issued June 29 will have far-reaching effects not only on the diversity of doctors and other care providers in training but ultimately also on patient care. The decision found it is unconstitutional for colleges and universities to use race as a factor in student admissions, which will affect enrollment decisions at public and private educational institutions, including medical schools. (Andrews, 7/6)

The U.S. National Institutes of Health late last month halted further funding for a pair of malaria research facilities in Colombia after authorities filed charges against the operators for lacking permits to experiment on monkeys and causing “harm to wildlife.” The move came more than six months after the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals notified both the U.S. agency and Colombian authorities of problems at the Caucaseco Scientific Research Center and Malaria Vaccine Development Center. Both are run by a husband-and-wife team that has received more than $17 million in NIH funding since 2003, according to the animal rights group. (Silverman, 7/5)