It has been difficult to find mental health counseling in much of the United States for years. But now, after two years of unrelenting stress, turmoil and grief, many people seeking help are confronting a system at or beyond capacity.
A U.S. Navy team that was dispatched to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis to help relieve overwhelmed staffers during a surge in COVID-19 cases has wrapped up its deployment after 60 days.
It’s the latest twist in a long-running story involving Dr. Timothy Story, who worked for St. Vincent Medical Group for a decade, but was fired in August 2020 after St. Vincent learned of a federal investigation into his prescribing practices.
The nursing home industry has lost more than 420,000 jobs since the start of the pandemic, reducing its workforce to the size it was 15 years ago. Meanwhile, the aging trend that the U.S. Census Bureau calls the “gray tsunami” looms ever closer.
Case counts fueled by the highly contagious variant have started to level off in some parts of the country hit early by the latest wave, but the entire country is not moving at the same pace.
The bill, which allows nursing schools to increase enrollment and hire more part-time instructors, is widely supported by Indiana hospital systems, nursing schools and the long-term-care industry.
House Speaker Todd Huston and Senate President Rodric Bray sent a joint letter Tuesday to 20 hospital and insurance executives, telling them to submit a plan by April 1 that would lower Indiana’s hospital prices to the national average or lower by 2025.
IU Health sued the physician group last month, claiming trademark infringement and unfair competition, after it learned Methodist Sports Group and Franciscan Health were teaming up on a new hospital.
The state’s largest hospital system said it continues to see “exceptionally high numbers” of COVID-19 patients in all 16 of its hospitals.
In an effort to address ongoing staffing woes, industry groups are seeking to ease some training and regulatory requirements.
The pandemic has highlighted what has long been a barrier to accessing quality medical care in rural areas and communities of color: provider shortages.
Franciscan issued a three-paragraph statement, saying it had “re-examined its next steps” for the COVID-19 vaccine and was now adopting a Jan. 4 deadline to comply with the federal mandate.
The latest suit, dated Monday, was filed in Louisiana on behalf of 12 states and comes less than a week after another lawsuit challenging the rule was filed in Missouri by a coalition of 10 states.
Indiana University Health, the parent of Methodist Hospital, wants the sports medicine group to drop “Methodist” from its name.
A federal judge in Indianapolis has tossed out Community Health Network’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit by the U.S. Justice Department that alleges the hospital system engaged in a fraudulent scheme to keep patient referrals in its network.
The problem, health leaders say, is twofold: Nurses are quitting or retiring, exhausted or demoralized by the crisis. And many are leaving for lucrative temporary jobs with traveling-nurse agencies that can pay $5,000 or more a week.
Be Well Family Care has more than 100 patients on a waiting list, so owner Swathi Rao plans to build a new facility to triple the functional medicine clinic’s footprint.
The order cites the recent strain on hospitals from the pandemic, and states they must report the number of hours each day they close their doors to ambulances bringing in new patients.
Indiana State Health Commissioner Dr. Kris Box pointed out that the vast majority of people showing up at hospitals needing treatment for COVID-19 are unvaccinated.
The state’s largest hospital system said the move was “needed to alleviate some of the enormous pressure our care teams are under and to reserve inpatient space for those who need it most.”
