In the state’s largest-ever Medicaid fraud recovery, Johnson & Johnson agreed Thursday to pay Texas $158 million to settle a lawsuit over its efforts to get the schizophrenia drug Risperdal on an approved list for the state’s poorest patients.
Department of State Health Services
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Health care
Disability Rights Group Demands Perry’s Attention
Disability rights advocates gathered at Gov. Rick Perry’s campaign headquarters today to demand a meeting with the governor to discuss improving care and living conditions for disabled Texans.
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State Government
State Releases Much-Reduced List of Family Planning Contractors
The Texas Department of State Health Services has released a much-reduced list of organizations that will receive state dollars to provide birth control, STD testing and cervical and breast cancer screenings for the state’s poorest women.
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Health care
Lawmakers, Hospital Administrators Revisit Texas Medicaid Waiver
Texas lawmakers and hospital administrators took a hard look Tuesday at the state Medicaid waiver recently OK’d by the Obama administration.
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Health care
Move to Managed Care Comes With Strings Attached
The federal government has granted Texas permission to move almost all of its Medicaid patients into managed care in an effort to save money. But as Carrie Feibel of KUHF News reports, hospitals will now have to do more to show how they spend — and prove they deserve — state money.
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Health care
Video: Texas’ Critical Shortage of Psychiatrists
The Tribune’s Thanh Tan speaks with a Texan living with anxiety and depression, the executive director of the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health at UT-Austin, and the head psychiatrist for Austin Travis County Integral Care to find out the reasons behind the state’s shortage of mental health providers.
Posted inHealth care
Interactive: Shortage of Texas Psychiatrists
While more Texans are being diagnosed with mental illness every year, experts say there aren’t enough psychiatrists or behavioral health professionals to meet growing demand. Use our video and interactive county-by-county maps to find out why.
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Health care
Was Federal Ruling a Win or a Loss for Family Planning Providers?
The federal government’s rejection this week of a state request to exclude certain providers — namely Planned Parenthood — from the Women’s Health Program came as a victory to some family planning advocates, and a travesty to others.
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Health care
Feds Approve One Health Waiver, Reject Another
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has turned down Texas’ request to run a family planning program that excludes some providers — namely Planned Parenthood. But it approved Texas’ request for a waiver to expand Medicaid managed care.
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Health care
Interactive: Dems Fight Insurance Department Effort to Delay Reform
Texas Democrats say the state Department of Insurance’s request for a delay in implementing federal health reform rules could cost Texans $260 million in premium credits and rebates over the next three years.
