Weekly Dose of Health News August 4-8, 2014

Weekly Dose of Health News August 4 – August 8, 2014
Here’s your Weekly Dose chock full of informative stories from a look at how consumers are still baffled by provisions of the Affordable Care Act, to a physician’s op-ed on how prescription drug prior authorization could impact patient care. And you might want to read how the key to happiness could be in lowering expectations.

The New York Times writes that consumers are still struggling to understand their new health coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

This New York Times op-ed looks at the prescription drug prior authorization policies of health plans, from a physician’s point of view. He concludes that these policies are detrimental to optimal patient care.

The New York State Division of Budget has released its first quarter update for the fiscal year, which shows a $4.2 billion surplus due to settlements with banks and insurance companies.

A poop pill has been created that contains fecal matter and is designed to combat a common hospital-acquired infection.

These health care organizations were awarded DSRIP design grants. These grants are designed to help awardees design projects geared toward reducing reliance on in-patient hospital care in the state’s Medicaid program.

HIV/AIDS groups are increasingly concerned that health plans under the Affordable Care Act are engaged in discrimination by forcing patients to pay a percentage of the cost of the drug, instead of a flat co-payment amount.

Reducing expectations may be the key to happiness.

From National Public Radio, a list of facts on the Ebola virus, including information about potential treatments for the disease.

The New York State AIDS Advisory Council is scheduled to meet on September 18 in New York City.

The President and CEO of the New York State Health Foundation offers advice on improvements to New York’s health exchange, mostly in the form of better transparency for consumers.

The Urban Institute looks at states, which have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

The Urban Institute also looks at a Medicaid pre-release enrollment project in Oregon.