The latest health care news from The Texas Tribune.
In a hearing before House budget-writers today, officials of Doctors Hospital at Renaissance conceded they'll move toward Medicaid managed care in the Rio Grande Valley, so long as it's done with lots of local input. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/020910-medicalprofessional.jpg)
Texas officials have halted the placement of foster care children at Daystar and have assigned the Houston-area residential treatment center a state monitor following revelations of a staff-instigated “fight club” incident two years ago and a new incident that has come to light this past week: a possible sexual assault of a girl living at the facility. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/dystarResidential.jpg)
When Texas expanded its Medicaid managed care program in 2003 to cover more than urban centers, the Rio Grande Valley narrowly avoided being included. But as state leaders stare down a multibillion-dollar budget shortfall, they say it’s unlikely the Valley will make it through another session without being roped in. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/20100526-DSC_6299.jpg)
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services has suspended all new placements of foster children at the Daystar Residential Treatment Center outside of Houston, following a Texas Tribune/Houston Chronicle investigation that revealed workers forced young girls to fight each other in return for snacks. Full Story
Alaska officials sent 16-year-old Richard DeMaar 4,000 miles away from his parents to a psychiatric facility in San Antonio because his home state wasn’t equipped to handle his severe depression. Within six weeks, he had tied a makeshift noose around his neck, strangling himself to death. He's one of roughly 900 out-of-state kids sent to residential treatment centers in Texas in the last five years, part of a national compact that allows states that don't have adequate psychiatric services to send kids to states that do. But the practice has come under fire from children’s health advocates, who say it takes kids away from their families and their communities — two things they need to make a full-fledged recovery. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/RichardDeMaar003.jpg)
For the past 16 years, the medical needs of Texas' 160,000 prison inmates have been outsourced to the University of Texas Medical Branch and Texas Tech University, which have worked hard to provide care at the lowest possible cost. But with steep budget cuts and anticipated layoffs, critics contend the state could soon sacrifice the quality of that care — and could even face a legal challenge. Nathan Bernier of KUT News reports. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/20100526-DSC_6238.jpg)
Ramshaw and the Houston Chronicle's Terri Langford on incidents of abuse and mistreatment at residential treatment centers, M. Smith on the state Republican Party platform and 10th Amendment embracers, Galbraith on a pipeline project raising crude concerns and the most important word in water law, Ramsey on former officeholders who are now lobbyists and the possibility of a speaker's race, Grissom on a fight over solar power in Marfa, Hamilton and Aguilar on the TxDOT audit, Philpott on budget cuts affecting school districts and my conversation with Dallas County D.A. Craig Watkins: The best of our best from June 7-11, 2010. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/TribWeekJune11-2010.jpg)
Gov. Rick Perry's office said this evening that it has ordered the Department of Family and Protective Services to review its investigation and sanction policies in light of a Houston Chronicle/Texas Tribune article on staffers who forced young girls to fight at a Houston-area residential treatment center for foster children. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/20100605_MG_1035.jpg)
The day after the Texas Tribune and the Houston Chronicle collaborated to expose a fight club — this one involving young girls at a Houston-area residential treatment center for foster kids — gubernatorial hopeful Bill White's campaign sounded off on it, blaming Gov. Rick Perry for not being aware of the abuse. Full Story
“On some wide-ranging stories, two news organizations are certainly better than one in pursing the truth,” Houston Chronicle editor Jeff Cohen says. We couldn't agree more. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/CM_Capture_1________.jpg)
Workers at a center for distressed children in Manvel provoked seven developmentally disabled girls into a fight of biting and bruising, while they laughed, cheered and promised the winners after-school snacks. The fight was one of more than 250 incidents of abuse and mistreatment in residential treatment centers over the last two years, based on a Houston Chronicle/Texas Tribune review of Department of Family and Protective Services records. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/dystarResidential002.jpg)
Ramshaw on geriatric care in state prisons, with Miller's photo essay inside those walls; M. Smith interviews the state's newest Supreme Court justice, Debra Lehrmann; Aguilar finds fewer Mexicans seeking asylum in the U.S; Galbraith sorts out the politics of pollution and whether our air is dangerous to breathe; Thevenot discovers authorities writing tickets for misbehavior to elementary school kids; Philpott reports on early hearing about political redistricting; Kreighbaum examines fines levied against polluters and finds they're often smaller than the economic benefits of the infractions; and Stiles and Babalola spotlight some of our data projects from our first seven months online: The best of our best from May 31 to June 4, 2010. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/tribweek-june05-2010.jpg)
Physician-owned hospitals, which provide some of the best health care in the nation but have been in danger since health insurance reform passed, are taking their case to court. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/120309_hospitalsign001_go.jpg)
When a family member dies, accessing bank accounts and collecting on insurance policies requires proper paperwork. Despite a state mandate to process death certificates in a timely fashion, however, doctors are dragging their heels, funeral directors say, leaving survivors in the lurch. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/deathcertificate.jpg)
Texas’ “geriatric” inmates (55 and older) make up just 7.3 percent of Texas’ 160,000-offender prison population, but they account for nearly a third of the system’s hospital costs. Prison doctors routinely offer up the oldest and sickest of them for medical parole, a way to get those who are too incapacitated to be a public threat and have just months to live out of medical beds that Texas’ quickly aging prison population needs. They’ve recommended parole for 4,000 such inmates within the last decade. But the state parole board has only agreed in a quarter of these cases, leaving the others to die in prison — and on the state’s dime. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/20100526-DSC_6152.jpg)
The biggest consumer benefit of federal health care reform — adding millions more Americans to insurance rolls — could spell disaster for some public hospitals. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/20100526-DSC_6348.jpg)
Ramsey on what the new University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll says about the governor's race, education, immigration, and other issues; Grissom on a far West Texas county divided over Arizona's immigration law; Ramshaw talks health care reform and obesity in Texas with a legendary Dallas doctor; M. Smith on the Collin County community that's about to break ground on a $60 million high school football stadium; Aguilar on the backlog of cases in the federal immigration detention system; Philpott of the Green Party's plans to get back on the ballot; Hu on the latest in the Division of Workers' Comp contretemps; Mulvaney on the punishing process of getting compensated for time spent in jail when you didn't commit a crime; Hamilton on the fight over higher ed formula funding; and my sit-down with state Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin: The best of our best from May 24-28, 2010. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/tribweekmay29.jpg)
The world-renowned Dallas doctor who essentially invented jogging as exercise talks with the Tribune about health care reform, the crisis of obesity in Texas, and what lawmakers must do to shore up the physical-education legislation they passed last session. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/cooper.jpg)
A majority of Texans believe the state is on the right track, while a plurality thinks the country is on the wrong track, according to a new University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/MayPoll2010_001-1.png)
In an ironic twist, states that have done the least to bring low-income residents onto state Medicaid rolls — including Texas — stand to benefit the most from federal health care reform, according to a report released this morning by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/DrAtComputer.jpg)