The problem is not limited to one clinic or one state. Over the past year, reporters interviewed more than 20 patients, health care providers, privacy experts and advocates about the documents patients are expected to sign before receiving care. Again and again, they described the same experience: Patients are asked to acknowledge or accept privacy terms on electronic forms without being able to fully review them, decline them or immediately opt out of data sharing.

Paula Stannard, director of the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, described a similar experience during a major health industry conference in March. Stannard, one of the federal government’s top health privacy officials, said she was asked at an eye doctor’s appointment to sign a form acknowledging that she had received a notice explaining how the office would use her health information.

She had not received the notice, she said.

Stannard told the audience she did not identify herself or confront the office staff about the issue, but she wrote on the form that she had not received the notice and was not acknowledging receipt.

Such encounters matter because patient information is increasingly shared through health information exchanges, networks that allow hospitals, doctors and other providers to access medical records from different health care organizations. These systems can be useful, especially when a patient’s history is scattered across multiple providers. A doctor treating someone in an emergency, for example, may benefit from quick access to lab results, prescriptions or prior diagnoses.

But broader access also creates risks. Patients who seek abortion care in a state where it is legal may not want those records to follow them into a state where abortion is criminalized. Companies have been accused of improperly accessing health records under the claim of treatment and sending information to personal injury law firms. Researchers have also documented employees snooping in electronic medical records. Other risks include data breaches and misuse by abusers who may try to track a partner through a child’s pediatric records.

For patients, the main way to limit some of those risks is to opt out when providers offer that option. The investigation found that doing so can be far more difficult than the forms suggest.

Gale Oleson, a retired dermatologist in Missouri, recalled being handed a signature pad in an emergency room after injuring his hand. Staff told him he needed to sign before they could perform the procedure. Oleson said he asked to see what he was signing, joking that he did not know whether he was signing away his house, car or life insurance.

He said staff often will turn a screen toward him or print out a copy if asked, but that the process tends to be awkward and slow.

Experts describe some of these barriers as “dark patterns,” a term used for design choices that push people toward decisions they might not otherwise make. In this context, it may be easier for a patient to click a box saying they received a privacy notice, even if they did not, or to sign a digital pad without seeing the full document.

Pushing back can be intimidating. Patients interviewed for the investigation, including one lawyer who works as a privacy advocate, said they worry that questioning forms or rejecting certain terms could lead providers to view them as difficult and make it harder to get care.

The issue can be especially acute when treatment is imminent. In one case previously reported by The Markup, a parent whose toddler was about to undergo surgery asked for a copy of a consent form while the child was already on a movable bed and the surgeon was ready. A nurse said she could not provide the form and directed the parent elsewhere. The parent dropped the request in the moment to avoid delaying surgery and obtained the document only after repeated follow-up.

To better understand what patients face, a reporter registered for appointments with more than a dozen health care systems in Iowa, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina and Virginia. One telehealth appointment with a women’s health clinic in Virginia showed how an electronic check-in system could require a patient to accept data sharing even while the privacy notice described a way to opt out.

During registration for the October 2025 appointment, the reporter was asked to sign a notice of privacy practices. The notice said the patient’s medical information could be shared through a health information exchange, allowing other providers to search for records such as lab results or medical history. It also stated that by signing the form, the patient agreed to have medical information shared.

The document described two alternatives: follow instructions on an opt-out form, though no link to that form was provided, or accept immediately and later begin the opt-out process by email.

At the end of the electronic notice, however, there was no visible way to decline. The only option was “I accept.” The patient then had to type a name to accept the policy, check a box acknowledging an electronic signature and click a button to continue.

When the reporter skipped the accept button and tried to proceed, the system displayed an error stating that the form was mandatory and had to be accepted before moving forward.

The reporter stopped the process and emailed the address listed in the notice. An employee replied the same day with an opt-out request form and confirmed that registration was required to opt in. The employee also said the company managing the consent process would handle the opt-out after the form was signed and processed.

That raised another concern: The notice said an opt-out would not affect health information already disclosed through a health information exchange before the opt-out took effect. The reporter asked how to ensure no information would be shared before the appointment.

The next day, the employee said the company would proactively opt the patient out of the information exchange, while still asking that the opt-out form be completed. The employee said the check-in could then be finished and that the setting would remain unchanged.

The reporter then returned to the form and clicked “I accept,” after being assured that the opt-out would remain in place. In the signature field, the reporter wrote that they were opting out of the health information exchange, followed by their initials.

When contacted about the process, a manager at the women’s clinic defended Privia Health’s procedure and said Privia is available to patients who want to opt out.

Lior Strahilevitz, a University of Chicago legal scholar who has studied privacy and dark patterns and teaches health law, said the registration process contained multiple dark patterns.

One, he said, is an “obstruction” pattern, in which the design makes it more difficult for patients to select anything other than the option preferred by the provider. Another is “visual interference,” where the structure of the screen creates an unreasonable burden. In this case, he said, patients had to go outside the registration interface — by sending an email and waiting for a response — to exercise the right the notice said they had.

Lucia Savage, former chief privacy officer at the federal Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, said such problems can arise when paper forms are copied into digital systems without meaningful redesign.

Legal experts said the situation is complicated. In Virginia, where the appointment occurred, health care providers may enroll patients in information exchange data sharing during registration and give them an option to opt out later. Sarah Jaromin, a health policy specialist at the National Conference of State Legislatures, said Virginia does not currently have a state policy with explicit opt-in or opt-out requirements.

State laws vary. Florida and New York require explicit patient consent before information can be shared or accessed through health information exchanges. Arizona and Maryland permit data sharing by default if patients are notified and given a way to opt out. Other states follow the federal baseline. Under the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, known as HIPAA, sharing patient data through a health information exchange is generally allowed for treatment and related purposes.

Craig Konnoth, a University of Virginia law professor who specializes in health and civil rights, reviewed the privacy notice used in the Virginia appointment. He said that if a provider tells patients their data will be used until they file opt-out paperwork, that approach is generally legally permissible.

But experts said another part of the process conflicts with the intent of health privacy rules: forcing patients to sign or accept the privacy notice before they can continue.

Stacey Tovino, a University of Oklahoma College of Law professor who teaches HIPAA privacy law, said HIPAA does not require a patient to sign a notice of privacy practices. Providers must ask patients to acknowledge receipt of the notice, but if they do not obtain a signature, they can document why they did not get one.

That is different from treatment consent forms or financial responsibility agreements, which patients are typically required to sign before receiving care. A notice of privacy practices is supposed to inform patients how their information may be used, not serve as a mandatory agreement to treatment.

Emily Hilliard, press secretary at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, confirmed that HIPAA does not require providers to obtain a patient’s consent to a privacy notice. She also said HIPAA does not prohibit covered entities from requiring patients to acknowledge or agree to the terms of such a notice.

In practical terms, that means requiring a patient to accept a privacy notice before treatment is currently legal.

Adam Greene, a partner at the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine who focuses on health information, privacy and security, said that is likely because federal officials never anticipated that acknowledgment of a privacy notice would become a barrier to care. He said HHS has heard of widespread problems with the acknowledgment process causing confusion and interfering with patient care.

In 2021, HHS proposed a rule that would eliminate the requirement that direct treatment providers obtain written acknowledgment that patients received a notice of privacy practices. The rule was not finalized, but it is back on the federal agenda this year.

Stannard said HHS is working to finalize a rule that includes additional requirements related to privacy notices. The current proposal includes removing the requirement for providers to obtain written acknowledgment that a patient received the notice.

Some experts say regulators should go further and require that patients be able to opt out immediately when they are told they have that right.

Tovino said federal rules should prohibit health care organizations from placing undue burdens on people who try to opt out or forcing them to continue through registration in a way that effectively waives their ability to opt out at the earliest opportunity. She said that if a notice tells a patient they have the right to opt out, the next sentence should provide a working link to do so.

Savage said such a requirement could be a meaningful intervention and that the Office for Civil Rights at HHS could address it through regulation.

At the March conference where Stannard described her experience at the eye doctor, she was asked whether updating privacy rules to require a live link for patients who want to opt in or out of information sharing would help empower patients. Stannard said it was an interesting idea and something the agency could consider.

The registration process also revealed how difficult it can be to determine who is responsible for a patient-facing digital form. The telehealth appointment involved multiple companies.

The mobile check-in link came from Phreesia, a company that provides patient-facing software for tasks such as consent forms, screening surveys and payment. Phreesia has said its systems are used in one in six patient visits in the United States.

The clinic was part of Privia Health, which provides management services for nearly 5,000 providers in 15 states, affecting 5.2 million patients, according to a 2025 company press release. The privacy notice directed the patient to Privia’s medical records office to opt out, and Phreesia’s logo appeared on copies of forms sent by the clinic.

Six months later, for a second telehealth appointment, the clinic sent a link connected to another vendor, athenahealth. The clinic had replaced Phreesia with athenahealth.

Savage said smaller practices often do not have internal expertise to design these systems and instead buy available technology that is affordable and easy to implement.

When The Markup and CalMatters asked Privia, Phreesia and athenahealth who controlled the design of the patient registration interface, none provided a clear answer.

Privia said it is committed to protecting patient privacy and security and complying with regulatory requirements. Athenahealth said it provides technology that health care providers use to manage registration and clinical workflows, configured according to provider requirements and applicable law. Phreesia said the form belongs to the provider, which determines the content and interface options.

None of the companies answered detailed written questions about how much control clinics have over the interface.

Outside health care, regulators have increasingly scrutinized dark patterns. The Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, state attorneys general and other agencies have described such tactics as manipulative or abusive when they confuse consumers about privacy choices or make it difficult to cancel services.

California has been among the states taking aim at dark patterns in consumer privacy. But health privacy is governed mainly by HIPAA and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, creating a regulatory gap. Strahilevitz said agencies such as the FTC and CFPB have limited ability to police patient privacy because that responsibility primarily falls to HHS.

Greene and Savage said the FTC can pursue dark patterns as unfair or deceptive practices when for-profit health care entities are involved. But HHS has broader authority over the health care sector, including nonprofit hospitals.

Strahilevitz said consumer finance rules offer one way to think about the issue. In that field, a practice may be considered unfair or deceptive when consumers cannot reasonably avoid harm. In health care, he said, complicated opt-out systems can force patients to give up data by default, creating privacy harms that may be difficult or impossible to reverse.

He cited the potential for health information exchanges to reveal abortion-related records in states where abortion is criminalized as an example of a serious privacy injury.

Savage said regulators also could encourage better practices by investing in open-source interface designs for health care forms or by creating competitions through the federal health IT office to improve the tools doctors and clinics buy.

If major technology vendors changed how their registration systems work, the impact could extend to millions of patients. State regulation could also play a role, especially as states such as California continue to examine unfair or deceptive digital design practices.

Strahilevitz said the broader goal should be “symmetry of choice” — making it as easy for patients to decline or opt out as it is to accept.

The reporting was based on interviews with more than 20 patients, health care providers, experts and advocates, as well as the reporter’s registration for multiple medical appointments and review of the paperwork provided. The article also drew on a small ethnographic study reviewed by an institutional review board, a committee that evaluates research involving people to help protect participants’ rights and welfare.

Original source: CalMatters

The post The form asked my permission to share my health data. Then it wouldn’t let me say no. appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

“Narcan saves lives by reversing actual or suspected overdose to opioids,” Riverside University Health System CEO Jennifer Cruikshank, who is also serving as the hospital’s interim manager, said Thursday. “PVH plays a role in the critical infrastructure for our community. We are proud to be able to offer this free resource and access point from the hospital.”

Narcan, formally known as Naloxone, is an opioid antagonist nose spray that can arrest the effects of an overdose from fentanyl and other illicit drugs. It’s carried by fire crews and sheriff’s deputies countywide.

Palo Verde Hospital received more than 200 Narcan kits via the California Naloxone Distribution Project.

“A single dose of Narcan is administered as one spray into one nostril,” according to a hospital statement. “Each kit contains two nasal sprayers. Narcan should be stored in a cool, dry place. Given Blythe’s extreme summer heat, residents are strongly advised not to store Narcan in a vehicle, where high temperatures can degrade the medication and reduce its effectiveness.”

Residents can procure a free kit from staff in the hospital’s emergency room, which is the only functioning component of the medical facility, at 250 N. First St.

The hospital is under bankruptcy protection and a six-month management services agreement with the county, which is working to rectify the facility’s ongoing financial and operational challenges.

Without emergency services at the hospital, the area’s roughly 20,000 residents would lose access to “timely treatment for life-threatening conditions where minutes matter,” according to a county statement in January. Outside of the hospital, the nearest option for emergency healthcare is more than 70 miles away.

Preliminary county health department statistics indicated there were 229 suspected fentanyl-related fatalities countywide in 2025, compared to 351 confirmed poisonings in 2024, a roughly 40 percent decline.

The post RivCo Hospital Offering Narcan Safety Kits To Combat Overdose Deaths appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Both bills reopen the debate among families and advocates over when it’s appropriate to put someone into mental health treatment without their consent.

One bill would create a pathway for the most severely incapacitated people to go directly from Newsom’s voluntary mental health court into involuntary treatment in a hospital. The other would make it easier for EMTs and other first responders to refer people to mental health court. Both bills recently passed through the Senate Judiciary Committee, despite concerns from disability rights advocates that they would force more people into unwanted treatment.

“While early implementation shows promise,” Sen. Catherine Blakespear, a Democrat from Encinitas, said during a recent committee hearing, “barriers in the current petition process are preventing the program from reaching many of the individuals it was designed to serve.”

CARE Court launched in 2023 as a major piece of Newsom’s strategy to get people in the grip of psychosis off the streets. It allows family members of people with untreated schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders to refer them into the court-based program, where they can work with a judge, a public defender and a case worker on a plan for medication, therapy, housing, and whatever other help they may need.

But a CalMatters investigation found the program is falling short of expectations. As of January, California courts had received 3,817 petitions on behalf of prospective CARE Court participants and approved just 893 treatment agreements. At its outset, the Newsom administration estimated between 7,000 and 12,000 Californians would qualify for the program. 

Some families who attempted to use CARE Court to help their severely ill loved ones told CalMatters they were disappointed by the results. They thought a judge could order their family members into treatment. But that turned out not to be the case. If someone is too sick to realize they need treatment, CARE Court can’t help, which means that their case can be dismissed while the person continues to languish on the street.

That’s the problem Blakespear is attempting to tackle with Senate Bill 1016. It would allow anyone filing a CARE Court petition to request that a judge order a mental health assessment to determine if the subject of the petition is “gravely disabled” or a danger to themselves or others – if the subject can’t comply with voluntary treatment.  

Depending on the results of the assessment, a judge could order that person into a conservatorship, which would likely mean a stay in a locked psychiatric facility and mandatory medication. 

The idea is to create a formal bridge between voluntary treatment under CARE Court and involuntary treatment through a  conservatorship. 

Adding the specter of forced care will make people with mental illness less likely to accept help from CARE Court, Samuel Jain of Disability Rights California said during the committee hearing.

“SB 1016 adds an expensive, coercive and convoluted layer to CARE Court that will drive up costs and further erode the rights and trust of the Californians that our system is supposed to help,” he said. 

Family ‘frustrated’ by CARE Court

Jennifer Farrell, who filed a CARE Court petition in late 2024 for her brother in Alameda County, sees it differently. Farrell’s 59-year-old brother, who struggles with schizophrenia and meth use, had been homeless off and on since 2017. He was able to stay housed via CARE Court for a few months, but then he left his placement in September and disappeared into the streets.

It was clear he needed more help than CARE Court could provide, but the program had no way to elevate him to a higher level of care, Farrell said. 

“I was really frustrated at that point,” she told CalMatters.

Farrell’s brother spent three months deteriorating on the street before a case worker found him in December. He was hospitalized on a temporary psychiatric hold and eventually placed on a conservatorship. He’s still in a locked facility, where he’s medicated and seems to be doing much better, Farrell said. 

To Farrell, it’s “absurd” that there isn’t already a direct link between CARE Court and a conservatorship — a connection that she thinks could have saved her family some grief.

At CARE Court’s inception, Newsom said people who didn’t follow their CARE plans could be moved into a conservatorship. But Farrell and other families CalMatters spoke with said if their loved one couldn’t consent to treatment, there was no clear path forward.

Technically, CARE Court judges can order participants to follow mandatory “CARE plans” — something that happened just 32 times between late 2023 and January — but judges can’t force participants to comply.

Easier CARE Court petitions

Blakespear’s other bill, SB 989, addresses another CARE Court challenge: the low number of people participating. 

Filing a CARE Court petition is a complicated, time-consuming process. Whoever is filing the request needs the person’s medical records. Then, they need to appear at the first court hearing — something overworked first responders don’t always have time to do.

That’s a key reason that people who work in public safety, such as firefighters and EMTs, say they don’t file CARE Court petitions, said Meagan Subers of California Professional Firefighters, who spoke in support of the bill at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. 

SB 989 would create a framework for first responders to refer clients directly to their county behavioral health department, which could then file a CARE Court petition on their behalf. The county would have 30 days to decide whether to file.

Some counties already make an effort to train and support their first responders in filing CARE Court petitions. Stanislaus County allows first responders to refer CARE Court clients directly to the county.

But that collaboration isn’t happening in a systematic way across the state, Subers said. This bill could help fix a broken system where first responders are constantly cycling people with severe mental illnesses in and out of emergency rooms, she said.

“When our members have to run these calls repeatedly on individuals and take them to the hospital, knowing that they’re going to have to respond to that person again, my members tell me that they feel helpless,” she said. “We see this pathway as another option for them.”

Blakespear’s bills follow a similar effort last year by Sen. Tom Umberg of Santa Ana to make CARE Court more effective. His new law, which went into effect in January, expanded CARE Court to include people who experience psychosis as a result of bipolar disorder. The program initially was exclusively for people diagnosed with schizophrenia and other limited psychotic disorders.

The post Plans to fix gaps in Newsom’s mental health court reopen divisions over involuntary care appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

As the global medical community shifts its focus from merely managing symptoms to actively restoring vitality, Irvine.health has emerged as a central player in what many are calling “The Biological Reset.” This transition is being fueled by a perfect storm of groundbreaking research from Harvard Medical School, a seismic regulatory shift in early 2026, and a unique business model designed to navigate California’s stringent medical laws.

The MSO Model: Navigating California’s Medical Landscape

Unlike traditional corporate health clinics, Irvine.health operates as a Management Services Organization (MSO). This distinction is vital for regulatory compliance in California. Under the state’s Corporate Practice of Medicine (CPOM) doctrine, business corporations are prohibited from practicing medicine or employing physicians to do so.

“As an MSO, our role is to provide the infrastructure, the technology, and the administrative expertise that allows doctors to practice at the absolute top of their license,” says Christopher South, the founder of Irvine.health. “We provide the bridge between the complex science emerging from places like the Sinclair Lab at Harvard and the day-to-day reality of patient care.”

By handling the administrative “heavy lifting,” Irvine.health ensures that the “Reset” is conducted under direct physician supervision, maintaining the highest standard of care while allowing medical professionals to focus entirely on patient outcomes.

The “Information Theory of Aging”

The conceptual foundation of this revolution is rooted in the “Information Theory of Aging,” championed by Dr. David Sinclair and the Sinclair Lab at Harvard University. Sinclair’s theory suggests that our cells do not lose their fundamental “blueprint” (DNA) as we age; rather, they lose the ability to read it accurately.

Sinclair famously compares the genome to a digital CD and the epigenome—the cellular machinery that reads the DNA—to the CD player. Aging, he argues, is the result of “scratches” on the disc (epigenetic noise) that prevent the music of our youth from playing clearly.

“The discovery from the Sinclair Lab is that the body retains a ‘backup copy’ of youthful information,” South explains. “By using specific signaling molecules like peptides, we can effectively ‘polish the scratches’ and reboot the system. We aren’t just masking a problem; we are tapping into the body’s internal software.”

This theory moved closer to clinical ubiquity in early 2026, when the FDA cleared the first human clinical trials for cellular reprogramming therapy, an effort spearheaded by Sinclair-backed biotech initiatives seeking to reverse the biological age of specific tissues.

A Regulatory Renaissance: The “Essential 14”

The practical application of these principles today primarily involves peptides—short chains of amino acids that act as the body’s own messenger system.

In a landmark decision in February 2026, federal health authorities announced that approximately 14 essential peptides—including the highly sought-after BPC-157, Thymosin Alpha-1, and GHK-Cu—would be moved from the FDA’s “Category 2” restricted list back to Category 1. This reclassification allows licensed 503A compounding pharmacies to legally prepare these compounds again when prescribed by a physician.

“The FDA’s decision to re-legalize these peptides is a win for clinical transparency,” says South. “It allows our affiliated physicians to move away from unregulated ‘research chemicals’ and provide patients with pharmaceutical-grade, physician-supervised treatments that prioritize safety.”

The Evidence Gap: From Lab Rats to Living Rooms

Despite the clinical excitement, the peptide revolution still faces a significant “evidence gap” that researchers and practitioners must navigate.

Critics point out that the vast majority of rigorous, peer-reviewed studies on peptides like BPC-157 (Body Protection Compound) have been conducted primarily in animal models. While these studies show near-miraculous tissue repair and gut healing in rodents, large-scale, “gold standard” human trials are still catching up.

“We have to be grounded in reality,” South admits. “While the animal data is stunning and the anecdotal success stories from thousands of patients are incredibly compelling, we are still on the frontier. That is why physician oversight via our MSO model is so critical. We aren’t just selling a product; we are facilitating a medically-monitored protocol where we track real human biomarkers to ensure the safety and efficacy of the treatment.”

California’s Legislative Frontier: AB 2442

As 2026 unfolds, California is positioned to lead this movement through new legislative frameworks. Currently, the state is monitoring Assembly Bill 2442, which aims to establish a state-authorized research and therapeutic access program for advanced medical treatments, potentially providing further legitimacy and oversight to the work being done at facilities supported by Irvine.health.

Digital Edition Note: Readers can track the progress and details of this legislation via the official CA AB 2442 Bill Analysis on Digital Democracy.

“We are standing at the threshold of a new frontier,” says South. “The ability to rebuild the body at a cellular level is no longer a distant hope—it is a clinical reality. We are finally learning to speak the body’s own language, and the results are transformative.”

Medical Disclaimer: The information in this article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Irvine.health is a Management Services Organization (MSO) and does not practice medicine. All medical services are provided by independent, licensed physician-owned practices. Peptide therapies are subject to medical evaluation and must be prescribed by a licensed healthcare professional. For more on the research cited, visit the Sinclair Lab at Harvard Medical School.

The post The Biological Reset: Inside the Quest to Rebuild the Human Body via Peptide Therapy appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week posted a list of more than two dozen types of testing that have become unavailable.

This is not the first time the CDC has paused some of its lab testing. But it is pausing more kinds of tests than ever before, and it is not totally clear why, said Scott Becker, chief executive officer of the Association of Public Health Laboratories.

A government spokesman called the pause temporary and attributed it to “a routine review to uphold our commitment to high quality laboratory testing.”

“We anticipate some of these tests will be available through CDC labs again in the coming weeks. In the meantime, CDC stands ready to support our state and local partners to access the public health testing they need,” said Andrew Nixon of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC.

CDC’s laboratory operations were faulted during the COVID-19 pandemic, and they were the subject of a subsequent work group’s review. The agency has been evaluating its testing since 2024, Becker said.

But there can be other reasons for taking tests offline, including staffing issues, he noted.

The pausing of lab testing comes in the wake of the dramatic downsizing of the CDC in the last year through layoffs, retirements, resignations and the nonrenewal of temporary appointments. Staffing fell by 20% to 25%, according to different estimates, and was felt across the agency — including in the laboratories.

The poxvirus and rabies labs lost about half their prior staff, and the CDC’s malaria branch was gutted even more, according to the National Public Health Coalition, an organization of former and current CDC workers that formed in the wake of the downsizing.

Some of the paused testing focuses on common infections for which commercial testing is available, like Epstein-Barr virus, and the varicella zoster virus behind chickenpox and shingles. But also on the list is testing for some more exotic agents, like the for parasitic worms responsible for “snail fever” and for the virus that causes “sloth fever.”

Some specialized state labs, like those in the New York and California, have the ability to pick up the slack while CDC tests are on pause, Becker said.

He called the pauses “concerning, only if it’s permanent.”

The post CDC pauses dozens of types of lab testing during evaluation and in wake of downsizing appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

A “strike team” previously authorized by the board and composed of medical professionals from the Riverside University Health System initiated a reformation intended to stabilize the Blythe hospital’s emergency clinic.

The team’s deployment was appended to a $1 million stabilization loan for the hospital. However, on Feb. 24, county Chief Executive Officer Jeff Van Wagenen signed off on a $3.44 million payment to the California Department of Health Services. That disbursement was made without a vote by the Board of Supervisors because the panel was not in session. Executive Office spokeswoman Brooke Federico said the payment covered a Palo Verde Healthcare District obligation to the state’s Voluntary Rate Range Program, or VRRP.

Without emergency services at the Blythe facility, the area’s roughly 20,000 residents would lose access to “timely treatment for life-threatening conditions where minutes matter,” according to a county statement in January.
Outside of the hospital, the nearest option for emergency healthcare is more than 70 miles away.

The “intergovernmental transfer” payment, which Van Wagenen did not mention publicly during the board’s previous meeting, has enabled the Palo Verde Healthcare District to tap into taxpayer-backed credit to bolster hospital operations.

“As a result of the county’s action, the … district has already received approximately $8.9 million in program funds, with the remaining expected in the coming days,” Federico said, adding that because of Medi-Cal requirements, “immediate action was required” and could not wait on the Board of Supervisors.

The board will scrutinize the proposed revised loan agreement with the district, under which it would be on the hook for the county’s $3.44 million outlay, on top of the $1 million previously authorized for the insolvent hospital.

The supervisors also have been requested to fill two vacancies on the Palo Verde District Board of Directors. The vacant seats have hamstrung the district’s ability to convene a quorum to vote on pending actions, according to PVHD President Carmela Garnica.

“In the interest of restoring a fully functioning five-member board, I respectfully request that the county … complete the appointment process for the two vacant seats,” she said in a letter to Supervisor Manuel Perez, whose Fourth District encompasses Blythe.

Under a proposed management services agreement additionally on the agenda, RUHS staff can implement all necessary processes connected to the county’s 180-day strike team support plan, with the goal of maintaining emergency operations at the cash-strapped hospital.

“We aren’t just here to manage a transition; we are here to support the incredible frontline staff and ensure that every resident has access to the high-quality, stable care they deserve,” RUHS CEO Jennifer Cruikshank said last month.

The monetary agreement specifies the county will have “first
priority” status among the healthcare district’s creditors and will under no circumstances be liable for any of its debts. The loan structure calls for a roughly nine-month grace period, during which no payments on the loan are required. However, starting in October, initial payment on loan principal will be necessary. A 3% annual interest rate will be assessed beginning January 2027, and the $1 million will have to be fully amortized by October 2031.

At the end of September, the PVHD board voted to seek federal Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection while efforts were made to stanch ongoing financial losses.

Administrators noted the hospital had been struggling to remain afloat since the start of the current decade, with revenue streams withering while patient loads remained unchanged.

The California Health Facilities Financing Authority extended an $8.5 million infusion from the Distressed Hospital Program in 2023, but that turned into a short-term fix, according to the district. Administrators expressed frustration at the time about the inability to recruit a chief financial officer who would stay the course in sorting out possible solutions. Four CFOs came and went in an 18-month span.

Only the emergency room remains open. All other hospital operations have been shut down.

The county’s original loan will pay for staff salaries and benefits, pharmaceuticals, equipment purchases, utilities, billing operations and some legal expenses associated with Chapter 9 proceedings.

The possibility of a wholesale county takeover of the hospital’s
emergency department has not been ruled out publicly.

The post RivCo Board Set To Take Further Action To Assist Bankrupt Hospital appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Officials with the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals said in a statement there has been “significant movement at the bargaining table” over the past 48 hours, prompting them to call for an end to the strike as of 7 a.m. Tuesday.

The union also called off all picketing activity on Monday as the union and Kaiser “finalize return-to-work agreements.”

The nurses’ strike began on Jan. 26. Union officials called it the “largest open-ended strike of registered nurses and health care professionals in United States history.”

There were no immediate details available about the how close the two sides were to reaching a contract agreement, or what issues may have been resolved.

The roughly 31,000 members of the UNAC/UHCP had vowed to stay on strike until a fair contract agreement was reached. UNAC/UHCP members include registered nurses, pharmacists, nurse anesthetists, nurse practitioners, midwives, physician assistants, rehab therapists, speech language pathologists, dietitians and other specialty health care professionals.

“We’re striking because Kaiser has committed serious unfair labor practices and because Kaiser refuses to bargain in good faith over staffing that protects patients, workload standards that stop moral injury and the respect and dignity that Kaiser caregivers have been denied for far too long,” registered nurse Charmaine Morales, president of UNAC/UHCP, said previously.

Kaiser Permanente countered that it had “proposed 21.5% wage increases — our strongest national bargaining offer ever — and we are prepared to close agreements at local tables now. Employees deserve their raises and patients deserve our full attention, not prolonged disputes.”

Camille Applin-Jones, senior vice president at Kaiser Permanente Southern California, previously described Kaiser’s latest contract offer as “one of the strongest nursing contract offers in California this year” once step increases and local adjustments are factored in.

“Despite the union’s claims, this strike is about wages. This open- ended strike by UNAC/UHCP is unnecessary when such a generous offer is on the table. The strike is designed to disrupt the lives of our patients — the very people we are all here to serve,” Applin-Jones said.

The union filed an unfair labor practice charge against Kaiser with the National Labor Relations Board alleging the company walked away from the bargaining table in December and has attempted to bypass the agreed-upon national bargaining process. The union has been bargaining with Kaiser since last May.

The post RivCo Kaiser Nurses Will Return To Work After ‘Significant Work At The Bargaining Table’ appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Rady Children’s Health, encompassing Children’s Hospital of Orange County, Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego and Rady Children’s in Riverside County, said the organization was recently referred for investigation to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General.

The federal agency, which oversees the Medicare and Medicaid programs, did not comment about the timeline of its investigation or the focus of the probe Friday, saying HHS-OIG’s “general policy is to neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation.”

But patients at Rady Children’s and CHOC have been told they will no longer receive gender-affirming care at the facilities, which can include prescriptions for medications like puberty blockers, beginning on Feb. 6, according to advocates. As a result, patients going without medications like puberty blockers will not be able to see a doctor and have the specialized medical professional walk them through the process of going off the medication.

“The environment around gender-affirming care has changed dramatically, with escalating federal actions,” Rady Children’s Health said in a statement. “These developments affect our role and responsibilities as a provider participating in federal programs such as Medicaid and Medicare, which are essential to caring for all children and families in our communities.”

In December, HHS announced that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services were proposing new rules that would ban gender-affirming care by medical providers that participate in its programs.

“Nearly all U.S. hospitals participate in Medicare and Medicaid and this action is designed to ensure that the U.S. government will not be in business with organizations that intentionally or unintentionally inflict permanent harm on children,” the department said at the time.

The department said that officials would also propose additional rules to prohibit Medicaid and other funding from being used for gender-affirming care for children or adults under the age of 19.

Rady Children’s Health said the decision to stop providing such medical interventions, procedures and prescriptions for patients was “very difficult” and “made to ensure we can continue serving all children and families across the communities we serve.”

LGTBQ+ advocacy organizations say the move is another example of continuous efforts by the Trump administration to mischaracterize legitimate care backed by major U.S. medical associations and erode access to services based in part on the false premise that transgender people do not exist.

Many hospitals across the country, including in California, have already pulled back on gender-affirming care or shuttered entire programs amid mounting pressure from the federal government.

In July, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles officially closed what had been among the largest and oldest pediatric gender clinics in the United States. For years the clinic had provided puberty blockers, hormones and other procedures for trans youth on public insurance.

This has forced transgender children and their families to relocate — sometimes to other states and out of the country — to seek medical care, said Brit Cervantes, the founder of OCGAPNet, an organization that advocates for trans rights.

“It’s a message that’s being sent that’s very clear: transgender people, and particularly transgender youth, don’t have a right to exist, and we don’t have a right to have access to healthcare,” Cervantes said. “All of this rhetoric that comes with these hostile policies is really damaging.”

OCGAPNet and Pride at the Pier, another Orange County-based organization, are holding a rally outside Children’s Hospital of Orange County in Orange at noon on Saturday to call for hospital leadership to resist federal pressure. TransFamily Support Services and the Alliance for TransYouth Rights are also holding a protest at 11 a.m. on Saturday outside the Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego.

“This will not end with transgender kids,” said Kanan Durham, director of Pride at the Pier. “The administration is testing how easily they can force a hospital to betray its patients. They’re weaponizing their purse strings to tell us who can get care and who can’t.”

The post California’s largest pediatric healthcare system to halt transgender care amid Trump administration threats appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Enhanced tax credits that have helped reduce the cost of health insurance for the vast majority of Affordable Care Act enrollees expired overnight, cementing higher health costs for millions of Americans at the start of the new year.

Democrats forced a 43-day government shutdown over the issue. Moderate Republicans called for a solution to save their 2026 political aspirations. President Donald Trump floated a way out, only to back off after conservative backlash.

In the end, no one’s efforts were enough to save the subsidies before their expiration date. A House vote expected in January could offer another chance, but success is far from guaranteed.

The change affects a diverse cross-section of Americans who don’t get their health insurance from an employer and don’t qualify for Medicaid or Medicare — a group that includes many self-employed workers, small business owners, farmers and ranchers.

It comes at the start of a high-stakes midterm election year, with affordability — including the cost of health care — topping the list of voters’ concerns.

“It really bothers me that the middle class has moved from a squeeze to a full suffocation, and they continue to just pile on and leave it up to us,” said 37-year-old single mom Katelin Provost, whose health care costs are set to jump. “I’m incredibly disappointed that there hasn’t been more action.”

Some families grapple with insurance costs that are doubling, tripling or more

The expired subsidies were first given to Affordable Care Act enrollees in 2021 as a temporary measure to help Americans get through the COVID-19 pandemic. Democrats in power at the time extended them, moving the expiration date to the start of 2026.

With the expanded subsidies, some lower-income enrollees received health care with no premiums, and high earners paid no more than 8.5% of their income. Eligibility for middle-class earners was also expanded.

On average, the more than 20 million subsidized enrollees in the Affordable Care Act program are seeing their premium costs rise by 114% in 2026, according to an analysis by the health care research nonprofit KFF.

Those surging prices come alongside an overall increase in health costs in the U.S., which are further driving up out-of-pocket costs in many plans.

Some enrollees, like Salt Lake City freelance filmmaker and adjunct professor Stan Clawson, have absorbed the extra expense. Clawson said he was paying just under $350 a month for his premiums last year, a number that will jump to nearly $500 a month this year. It’s a strain for the 49-year-old but one he’s willing to take on because he needs health insurance as someone who lives with paralysis from a spinal cord injury.

Others, like Provost, are dealing with steeper hikes. The social worker’s monthly premium payment is increasing from $85 a month to nearly $750.

Effects on enrollment remain to be seen

Health analysts have predicted the expiration of the subsidies will drive many of the 24 million total Affordable Care Act enrollees — especially younger and healthier Americans — to forgo health insurance coverage altogether.

Over time, that could make the program more expensive for the older, sicker population that remains.

An analysis conducted last September by the Urban Institute and Commonwealth Fund projected the higher premiums from expiring subsidies would prompt some 4.8 million Americans to drop coverage in 2026.

But with the window to select and change plans still ongoing until Jan. 15 in most states, the final effect on enrollment is yet to be determined.

Provost, the single mother, said she is holding out hope that Congress finds a way to revive the subsidies early in the year — but if not, she’ll drop herself off the insurance and keep it only for her four-year-old daughter. She can’t afford to pay for both of their coverage at the current price.

Months of discussion, but no relief yet

Last year, after Republicans cut more than $1 trillion in federal health care and food assistance with Trump’s big tax and spending cuts bill, Democrats repeatedly called for the subsidies to be extended. But while some Republicans in power acknowledged the issue needed to be addressed, they refused to put it to a vote until late in the year.

In December, the Senate rejected two partisan health care bills — a Democratic pitch to extend the subsidies for three more years and a Republican alternative that would instead provide Americans with health savings accounts.

In the House, four centrist Republicans broke with GOP leadership and joined forces with Democrats to force a vote that could come as soon as January on a three-year extension of the tax credits. But with the Senate already having rejected such a plan, it’s unclear whether it could get enough momentum to pass.

Meanwhile, Americans whose premiums are skyrocketing say lawmakers don’t understand what it’s really like to struggle to get by as health costs ratchet up with no relief.

Many say they want the subsidies restored alongside broader reforms to make health care more affordable for all Americans.

“Both Republicans and Democrats have been saying for years, oh, we need to fix it. Then do it,” said Chad Bruns, a 58-year-old Affordable Care Act enrollee in Wisconsin. “They need to get to the root cause, and no political party ever does that.”

The post Health subsidies expire, launching millions of Americans into 2026 with steep insurance hikes appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Before little Ryu was born, he developed outside his mom’s womb, hidden by a basketball-sized ovarian cyst — a dangerous situation so rare that his doctors plan to write about the case for a medical journal.

Just 1 in 30,000 pregnancies occur in the abdomen instead of the uterus, and those that make it to full term “are essentially unheard of – far, far less than 1 in a million,” said Dr. John Ozimek, medical director of labor and delivery at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles where Ryu was born. “I mean, this is really insane.”

Lopez, a 41-year-old nurse who lives in Bakersfield, California, didn’t know she was pregnant with her second child until days before giving birth.

When her belly began to grow earlier this year, she thought it was her ovarian cyst getting bigger. Doctors had been monitoring the mass since her 20s, leaving it in place after removing her right ovary and another cyst.

Lopez experienced none of the usual pregnancy symptoms, such as morning sickness, and never felt kicks. Though she didn’t have a period, her cycle is irregular and she sometimes goes years without one.

For months, she and her husband Andrew Lopez went about their lives and traveled abroad.

But gradually, the pain and pressure in her abdomen got worse, and Lopez figured it was finally time to get the 22-pound cyst removed. She needed a CT scan, which required a pregnancy test first because of the radiation exposure. To her great surprise, the test came back positive.

Lopez shared the news with her husband at a Dodgers baseball game in August, handing him a package with a note and a onesie.

“I just saw her face,” he recalled, “and she just looked like she wanted to weep and smile and cry at the same time.”

Shortly after the game, Lopez began feeling unwell and sought help at Cedars-Sinai. It turned out she had dangerously high blood pressure, which the medical team stabilized. They also did blood work and gave her an ultrasound and an MRI. The scans found that her uterus was empty, but a nearly full-term fetus in an amniotic sac was hiding in a small space in her abdomen, near her liver.

“It did not look like it was directly invading any organs,” Ozimek said. “It looked like it was mostly implanted on the sidewall of the pelvis, which is also very dangerous but more manageable than being implanted in the liver.”

Dr. Cara Heuser, a maternal-fetal specialist in Utah not involved with the case, said almost all pregnancies that implant outside the uterus — called ectopic pregnancies — go on to rupture and hemorrhage if not removed. Most commonly, they occur in the fallopian tubes.

A 2023 medical journal article by doctors in Ethiopia described another abdominal pregnancy in which mother and baby survived, pointing out that fetal mortality can be as high as 90% in such cases and birth defects are seen in about 1 in 5 surviving babies.

But Lopez and her son beat all the odds.

On August 18, a medical team delivered the 8-pound (3.6-kilogram) baby while she was under full anesthesia, removing the cyst during the same surgery. She lost nearly all of her blood, Ozimek said, but the team got the bleeding under control and gave her transfusions.

Doctors continually updated her husband about what was happening.

“The whole time, I might have seemed calm on the outside, but I was doing nothing but praying on the inside,” Andrew Lopez said. “It was just something that scared me half to death, knowing that at any point I could lose my wife or my child.”

Instead, they both recovered well.

“It was really, really remarkable,” Ozimek said.

Since then, Ryu — named after a baseball player and a character in the Street Fighter video game series — has been healthy and thriving. His parents love watching him interact with his 18-year-old sister, Kaila, and say he completes their family.

With Ryu’s first Christmas approaching, Lopez describes feeling blessed beyond measure.

“I do believe in miracles,” she said, looking down at her baby. “God gave us this gift — the best gift ever.”

The post ‘The best gift ever’: Baby is born after the rarest of pregnancies, defying all odds appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.