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A government watchdog said in a report out Tuesday that the Labor Department “significantly broadened” an exemption allowing millions of health-care workers to be denied paid sick leave as part of the law Congress passed in March to help workers during the coronavirus pandemic. Congress passed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act in March to ensure workers at small- and medium-size companies were able to take paid leave if they or a family member became sick with the coronavirus. The law exempts health-care providers as well as companies with more than 500 employees. (Rosenberg, 8/11)

When Dr. Onyeka Otugo was doing her training in emergency medicine, in Cleveland and Chicago, she was often mistaken for a janitor or food services worker even after introducing herself as a doctor. She realized early on that her white male counterparts were not experiencing similar mix-ups. “People ask me several times if the doctor is coming in, which can be frustrating,” said Dr. Otugo, who is now an emergency medicine attending physician and health policy fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “They ask you if you’re coming in to take the trash out — stuff they wouldn’t ask a physician who was a white male.” (Goldberg, 8/11)

Kaiser Health News: Primary Care Doctors Look At Payment Overhaul After Pandemic Disruption

For Dr. Gabe Charbonneau, a primary care doctor in Stevensville, Montana, the coronavirus pandemic is an existential threat. Charbonneau, 43, his two partners and 10 staff members are struggling to keep their rural practice alive. Patient volume is slowly returning to pre-COVID levels. But the large Seattle-area company that owns his practice is reassessing its operations as it adjusts to the new reality in health care. (Findlay, 8/12)

Kaiser Health News: Nurses And Doctors Sick With COVID Feel Pressured To Get Back To Work

The first call in early April was from the testing center, informing the nurse she was positive for COVID-19 and should quarantine for two weeks. The second call, less than 20 minutes later, was from her employer, as the hospital informed her she could return to her job within two days. “I slept 20 hours a day,” said the nurse, who works at a hospital in New Jersey’s Hackensack Meridian Health system and spoke on the condition of anonymity because she is fearful of retaliation by her employer. (Huetteman, 8/12)

Trump campaign adviser Jenna Ellis intentionally misgendered Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine, a transgender woman, on Twitter early Monday morning. “This guy is making decisions about your health," Ellis wrote in a tweet that included an image and article about Levine, who has been leading Pennsylvania's COVID-19 response since the beginning of the pandemic. (Fitzsimons, 8/11)