Health category, Page 25

A federal jury on Monday found two nursing homes guilty of health care fraud but exonerated all five of their executives charged in the scheme. The mixed verdict was returned at 11:15 a.m. in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh following a five-week trial that featured 29 government witnesses. The two...

NEW YORK — The scene: A crowded shopping center in the weeks before Christmas. Or a warehouse store. Or maybe a packed airport terminal or a commuter train station or another place where large groups gather. There are people — lots of people. But look around, and it’s clear one...

Jillian Hauser spent more than a decade addicted to drugs, went through six rounds of rehab, did time in jail and lost custody of her two daughters. She hit bottom when Westmoreland County Judge Meagan Bilik-­DeFazio offered her one last chance to regain control of her life through the county’s...

When Jim Greenwood was a Bucks County child welfare caseworker, he was haunted by the images of babies born addicted to drugs. When he became U.S. Rep. Jim Greenwood, he did something about it. As a six-term Republican congressman from eastern Pennsylvania, the now-retired Greenwood penned a federal law requiring...

Dr. Bill Jenkins thought he had seen most of what life could throw at people during his years as an emergency room physician and medical director of Greensburg-based Mutual Aid, one of the state’s largest ambulance services. In the past three decades, he has tended to patients with drug overdoses,...

Four days after Christmas 2020, Hannah Moore felt horror like no other when she awoke to find her 2-month-old daughter’s cold, lifeless body nestled next to her in bed, inches away from her other two children. Traces of blood trickled from Avery Davis’ mouth and nose as Moore frantically dialed...

Pittsburgh health care giant UPMC is requiring masks at its facilities as it sees an increase in cases of covid, flu and other illnesses. “UPMC is seeing an increase in cases of respiratory viruses, including covid, influenza and RSV,” according to a statement from UPMC. “To protect the health and...

Allegheny Health Network is adding services to its primary care clinic in Downtown Pittsburgh. The Express Care services at its clinic on Penn Avenue are available for minor health conditions such as cold, flu and covid-19 symptoms; rashes and infections; and other afflictions. Testing also is available for covid, flu,...

Medication abortion is the preferred method of ending pregnancy in the U.S., and one of the two drugs used — mifepristone — will now go in front of the U.S. Supreme Court next year. Demand for the abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol has grown as states have imposed bans or...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed on Wednesday to take up a dispute over a medication used in the most common method of abortion in the United States, its first abortion case since it overturned Roe v. Wade last year. The justices will hear appeals from the Biden administration and...

WASHINGTON — When you buy eyedrops at a U.S. store, you might assume you’re getting a product made in a clean, well-maintained factory that’s passed muster with health regulators. But repeated recalls involving over-the-counter drops are drawing new attention to just how little U.S. officials know about the conditions at...

Butler Health System’s credit rating was further downgraded this week by rating agency Fitch. The system, which combined with Greensburg-based Excela Health at the beginning of the year to form Independence Health System, Monday, Dec. 12, had its rating lowered one notch from BBB to BBB- with a Negative Outlook....

This time last year at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, Chief of Emergency Services Dr. Raymond Pitetti and his team were overwhelmed with sick children. At the beginning of December 2022, the department saw a spike in activity from a combination of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), covid-19 and flu cases,...

A few days remain before Robert Patterson will mark his 97th birthday, on the day after Christmas. No one can be sure how many more candles he’ll add to his cake. He and his wife, Joyce, who is 90, have experienced declining physical health, including taxing respiratory conditions. It got...

Regulators on Friday approved two new gene therapies for sickle cell disease that doctors hope can cure the painful, inherited blood disorder that afflicts mostly Black people in the U.S. The Food and Drug Administration said the one-time treatments can be used for patients 12 and older with severe forms...

WASHINGTON — White House officials will take more time to review a sweeping plan from U.S. health regulators to ban menthol cigarettes, an unexpected delay that anti-tobacco groups fear could scuttle the long-awaited rule. Administration officials indicated Wednesday the process will continue into next year, targeting March to implement the...

AUSTIN, Texas — A pregnant Texas woman whose fetus has a fatal diagnosis asked a court Tuesday to let her have an abortion, bringing what her attorneys say is the first lawsuit of its kind in the U.S. since Roe v. Wade was overturned last year. Texas is one of...

A former employee at Brighton Rehabilitation and Wellness Center said Friday that her supervisor asked her to add names of people who had not worked to the schedule to pad their numbers to meet state staffing requirements. Susan Harrington worked at the facility, previously known as Friendship Ridge nursing home...

Allegheny County Jail health officials will now be required to provide medication for inmates being treated for opioid use disorder after reaching an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice. As part of the agreement, the county also will pay a person at the jail who was denied access to...

Independence Health System operated at a deficit of almost $23 million between the beginning of July and the end of September this year, according to recently released reports. The shortfall is an extension of the downsliding pattern that the combined health system — made up of subsidiaries Excela Health and...

A growing insurance business and rising patient volumes at Allegheny Health Network helped boost Highmark Health’s first nine months. Highmark Health, the parent company of the 14-hospital Allegheny Health Network, reported a profit of $431 million on $20.3 billion in revenue. That’s an increase over the same period last year,...

NEW YORK — U.S. life expectancy rose last year — by more than a year — but still isn’t close to what it was before the covid-19 pandemic. The 2022 rise was mainly due to the waning pandemic, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers said Wednesday. But even with...

HARRISBURG — A new Pennsylvania law will require doctors to get a patient’s verbal and written consent before medical students can perform pelvic or rectal exams on someone who receives anesthesia. At a press conference Monday, supporters touted the recently enacted legislation, which goes into effect in January. Tracking how...

Pharmacies, clinics, and primary care providers are offering the 2023-2024 updated covid booster and this year’s flu vaccine—and it’s both safe and convenient to get both vaccines at the same time, according to medical experts. In fact, you can get both shots in the same arm, said Dr. Graham Snyder,...