Stay in the know with Becker's Hospital Review's weekly roundup of the nation's biggest healthcare news. Here's what you need to know this week.
1. Inside sources say Apple pursued talks to buy medical clinics
Apple was reportedly in talks to purchase Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based Crossover Health, a healthcare startup that works with self-insured employers to provide medical and wellness services at onsite clinics.
2. Senators reach bipartisan healthcare agreement: 8 things to know
Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., went public with a bipartisan healthcare agreement Tuesday that would extend cost-sharing reduction payments through 2019 and give states greater flexibility in using ACA innovation waivers, or 1332s, to shape their health insurance marketplaces.
3. St. Charles Health System eliminates 102 positions, cuts executives' pay to recoup finances
Bend, Ore.-based St. Charles Health System announced a series of actions Tuesday — including layoffs and pay cuts to the health system's executive leadership team — to compensate for an operating income deficit of up to $35 million during the coming year.
4. Atlanta hospital delays toddler's kidney transplant because donor father violated parole
Two-year-old A.J. Burgess was scheduled to receive his father's left kidney in a life-saving transplant at Atlanta-based Emory University Hospital Oct. 3. The procedure did not occur. Although the hospital deemed A.J.'s father a match, his recent parole violation brought the operation to a halt.
5. More Americans died of drug overdoses in 2016 than in the Vietnam War
Provisional data the CDC released in September suggested more than 64,000 people died of drug overdoses in 2016, which surpasses the 58,200 Americans who died in the Vietnam War and the 50,682 people who died from HIV/AIDS in 1995, according to a report from the Police Executive Research Forum.
6. Mississippi hospital will charge $200 upfront fee for nonurgent ED visits
Beginning Nov. 1, Memorial Hospital at Gulfport (Miss.) will ask nonurgent patients who present at the hospital's emergency department to visit a walk-in clinic instead.
7. Florida Hospital Oceanside remains closed 1 month after hurricane
Florida Hospital Oceanside, an 80-bed hospital in Ormond Beach, remains closed more than a month after Hurricane Irma damaged the facility, and it is unclear when the hospital will reopen.
8. Ohio hospital closed indefinitely after fire
Summa St. Thomas Hospital in Akron, Ohio, remains closed after a fire broke out in the facility's basement Oct. 13.
9. Care New England to close hospital after sale to Prime Healthcare collapses
Providence, R.I.-based Care New England plans to close Memorial Hospital in Pawtucket, R.I., after a deal fell through to sell the hospital to Prime Healthcare Foundation, the Ontario, Calif.-based nonprofit arm of Prime Healthcare Services.
10. Tenet to close 232-bed Phoenix hospital
Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare will close Abrazo Maryvale Campus, a 232-bed hospital in Phoenix, by the end of the year.
11. DOJ: Personal trainer posed as physician in $25M scheme
A 54-year-old personal trainer was arrested in Fort Worth, Texas, Oct. 12, and charged with engaging in a scheme to defraud insurance companies by submitting more than $25 million in false claims for medical services.