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The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in Montana has temporarily closed the Veterans long-term care center in Miles City following concerns over patient safety, the agency said Thursday. In December, the VA’s regional office received a self-report from the facility over concerns for patient safety. The VA did not disclose the nature of the concerns or whether any veterans were harmed as a result of the concerns other than to say they were valid. The VA reportedly investigated the situation at the CLC in Miles City through an administrative review process, deemed the concerns justified and decided to move the veterans at the facility to other long-term care centers, according to Montana VA spokesperson Matt Rosine. (Etherington, 4/21)

Sequestration's Medicare payment cuts will have a disproportionate impact on small, rural hospitals, new reports show, and the cuts will soon get deeper. A 1% reduction to all Medicare payments via sequestration kicked in April 1, after Congress suspended the program during the COVID-19 pandemic. The cuts will scale up to 2% on July 1; an additional 4% Medicare reimbursement reduction is slated for 2023 via the Pay-As-You-Go Act. Sequestration, combined with waning reimbursement levels from private insurers, declining COVID-19 relief grants, lower patient volumes and higher operating costs, jeopardize more than 600 rural hospitals, or more than 30% of the U.S.' approximately 1,800 rural hospitals, according to a report from the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform. Two hundred of those hospitals are at risk of closing over the next two to three years, according to the report. (Kacik, 4/21)

In a groundbreaking study, Dr. Lisa Cooper, a leading researcher on racial health disparities at Johns Hopkins University, found that nearly all 40 participating Baltimore-area primary care doctors said they regarded their White and their Black patients the same. But that’s not what her testing on their unconscious attitudes revealed. Those tests, conducted a decade ago, showed that two-thirds of the physicians preferred White patients over Black. About the same percentage perceived White patients as more cooperative, while they perceived Black patients as more mistrustful and reluctant to comply with medical guidance. (Ollove, 4/21)

Despite claims by former Mount Carmel Health Systems doctor William Husel's lead defense attorney, some medical and legal experts say the murder trial of the former doctor likely won't shape the future of critical-care medicine. Husel, who worked in the intensive care unit at Mount Carmel West for more than five years, was found not guilty Wednesday of 14 counts of murder and potential lesser charges of attempted murder. He had been accused of ordering unnecessarily high doses of fentanyl for critically ill patients in his care who had been removed from ventilators and were close to death. (Bruner, 4/22)

A small, historically Black university known for its success in getting Black graduates into medical school announced Thursday that it is now planning its own medical school in New Orleans. The coronavirus pandemic emphasized the need for greater diversity in medicine, because representation and trust are part of the reasons for health disparities affecting underrepresented populations, said Reynold Verret, president of Xavier University of Louisiana. (4/21)

UnitedHealth Group Inc.’s plan to buy nonprofit Atrius Health, one of largest doctor groups in Massachusetts, has been approved by the state’s attorney general. As a condition of allowing Atrius to become a for-profit company, most of the $236 million UnitedHealth agreed to pay for Atrius’s assets would be placed in a charitable foundation when the deal closes, according to the attorney general’s office. (Tozzi, 4/21)

KHN: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: A Conversation With Peter Lee On What’s Next For The ACA

In this special episode of KHN’s “What the Health?” podcast, host Julie Rovner talks with Peter Lee, former head of Covered California, the largest state-run marketplace for insurance under the Affordable Care Act. Lee, who was the first executive director of Covered California and held the job for more than 10 years, stepped away in March. He reflects on how the ACA has changed the nation’s health system, what could result if Congress fails to renew expanded premium subsidies that have helped boost coverage, and what should happen next with the health law and the millions of Americans who still lack health insurance coverage. (4/21)