Busy place. The governor is replacing a failed task force, too.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2026/09/11/three-people-convicted-of-11m-medicaid-fraud-in-virginia/

3 People Convicted of $11M Medicaid Fraud in Virginia

Rich Tucker    |    September 11, 2026

A federal jury in Richmond convicted three people this week on charges that they defrauded Medicaid out of more than $11 million. The charges relate to billing by their company, Divine Youth Counseling LLC.

The three people, 31-year-old twin sisters E’mon and Armone’ Ambers, as well as 32-year-old Traquan Brown, billed Medicaid for a service known as Crisis Stabilization and Mobile Crisis.

“The defendants falsely claimed that two mental health professionals simultaneously provided services to Medicaid recipients, when in truth, at most a single mental health professional was present for the service,” the Justice Department wrote. “The false claims that two professionals provided ‘Team Treatment’ services caused millions of dollars of loss to Medicaid.”

In addition to the billing fraud, the three were also convicted on charges that they illegally provided hotel rooms for Medicaid recipients to encourage them to obtain Medicaid services from Divine Youth.

E’mon Ambers could be sentenced to up to 92 years in prison, while Armone’ Ambers could be sentenced to 42 years in prison. Traquan Brown could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison.

On Dec. 14, the court will hold a hearing to consider whether to claw back some of the money that the trio misappropriated. “The assets subject to forfeiture include $5,937,156.30 in funds seized pursuant to a federal seizure warrant,” the Justice Department noted.

Elsewhere in Richmond, Gov. Abigail Spanberger launched an effort this week to improve state services and reduce the size and scope of bad state contracts. The Democrat named Andrea Fletcher to be the first director of the Virginia Digital Service. Fletcher previously worked as the first chief digital strategy officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Spanberger had called for the creation of the team earlier this year as part of the compromise that allowed lawmakers to pass a budget in June. “Virginia Digital Service will bring together expert technical talent to modernize state systems, improve government websites, and speed up the delivery of the services that families rely on every day,” the governor said.

The creation of the team follows last month’s revelation that a previous reform effort launched by then-Gov. Glenn Youngkin had fallen short. “We uncovered a $52 million loss at the Department of Social Services on a failed effort to replace the commonwealth’s antiquated child support enforcement system,” Spanberger said. “Virginia paid serious money, and all we got were tools that barely worked.”

Spanberger also tapped Daniel Young to be the state’s next inspector general. Young has spent years working for the federal government, including stints at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and as an assistant United States attorney.

“I have worked to combat fraud and corruption throughout my career in public service, and I look forward to fighting fraud, waste, and abuse in this new role,” Young said last week. “The dedicated public servants who work in the Office of the State Inspector General are committed to making government more transparent and more accountable for all Virginians, and it is a privilege to support their efforts.”

If his nomination is approved by the General Assembly, Young would serve a four-year term investigating allegations of waste, fraud, and abuse in Virginia’s state government.

The Federal Records Act, enacted in 1950, governs the collection, retention, and preservation of federal agency records. Congress deemed federal records worthy of preservation for the information they provide on the transaction of public business and also because they document the “organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, and essential transactions” of the government (44 U.S.C. §3301).

The FRA also governs how federal records are to be destroyed or provided to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) for “permanent” archiving within the National Archives of the United States.
https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/IF/PDF/IF11119/IF11119.1.pdf

In an effort to stem the tide, today's FTC presser provides guideposts to changes in health data regulation.

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/09/ftc-withdraws-obsolete-policy-statement

FTC Withdraws Obsolete Policy Statement
Commission takes action to rescind unnecessary 2021 guidance document

September 9, 2026

The Federal Trade Commission rescinded the 2021 Policy Statement on Breaches by Health Apps and Other Connected Devices.

This controversial policy statement purported to apply the FTC’s Health Breach Notification Rule to health apps and connected devices that collect consumer health information. In 2024, however, the Commission updated the Health Breach Notification Rule to cover health apps and connected devices like fitness trackers, rendering the policy statement unnecessary.

In an executive order, President Donald J. Trump directed agencies to eliminate not just unnecessary rules, but also obsolete guidance documents and policy statements because they contribute to the “ever-expanding morass of complicated Federal regulation” without providing any benefit to American consumers.

The Federal Trade Commission works to promote competition and protect and educate consumers. The FTC will never demand money, make threats, tell you to transfer money, or promise you a prize. Learn more about consumer topics at consumer.ftc.gov, or report fraud, scams, and bad business practices at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. Follow the FTC on social media, read consumer alerts and the business blog, and sign up to get the latest FTC news and alerts.

Contact Information
Media Contact
Office of Public Affairs
Office of Public Affairs
202-326-2180

Overview courtesy Concerned Citizens for Health Freedom email.

Do you want informed consent and individual autonomy included in federal vaccine policy? The deadline to tell HHS is Sunday, September 20 at 5:00 pm EDT.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is specifically asking if you want individual autonomy, informed consent, parental permission, and religious freedom.

Say yes! Your comments today can stop another future mandate, like the COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Your comment can be just a sentence or two explaining, in your own words, why informed consent and freedom matter.

Public comments close September 20.

https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/HHS-OS-2026-0332-0001

From tiny Grand Rapids beginnings to 1891, the hospital now offers more than 110 specialized medical and sports rehabilitation programs. These programs cater to wide-ranging needs, including brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, and amputations. It covers nearly 40 sites reaching all over Michigan and into three other states. 

https://www.woodtv.com/news/grand-rapids/new-parking-ramp-more-beds-mary-free-bed-expansion-prompted-by-unbelievable-demand-cfo-says/

New parking ramp, more beds: Mary Free Bed expansion prompted by ‘unbelievable demand,’ CFO says

Katie Rosendale    |    Sep 3, 2026

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation is in the midst of a multimillion-dollar expansion that includes more beds at its main hospital and a new parking ramp.

It was prompted by “unbelievable demand,” according to Ryan Podvin, chief financial officer for Mary Free Bed.

“There’s a lot of people out there that need rehabilitation,” he told News 8. “And we’re serving everybody from our youngest little kiddos up to some of our oldest patients every single day.”

The expansion has several facets. The “largest” can be found at Mary Free Bed’s main hospital at 235 Wealthy St. SE, Podvin said. In multiple phases over the past few years, Mary Free Bed has added 48 beds on the hospital’s sixth floor. It’s also planning a roof replacement for the hospital.

“As we’ve grown and we’ve built new, we don’t want to forget to maintain our existing assets,” Podvin said.

Nearby, construction is well underway on a new 350-space parking ramp at 220 Wealthy St. SE.

“As we expand inpatient and outpatient capacity, as well as bring the kids’ hospital online, we knew parking would be at a premium,” Podvin explained.

On top of providing “badly needed” parking spots on Mary Free Bed’s campus, the ramp will also include “uplifting” murals, he continued.

“It’s going to be the most beautiful parking ramp you’ve ever seen,” he said.

It’s expected to open by the end of the year.

As its administrative staff grows, Mary Free Bed is also renovating the office building at 350 Lafayette Ave. SE. That work is expected to take around 18 months, according to Podvin.

Finally, Mary Free Bed earlier this year opened a new location at 4020 E. Beltline Ave. NE, where it provides a range of services like physical therapy, occupational therapy and orthotics and prosthetics.

To finance all of this work, Mary Free Bed is issuing bonds through the Kent Hospital Finance Authority.

“As we make these long-term infrastructure investments, we’re financing them with tax-exempt bonds, which are long term,” Podvin said.

The Kent County Board of Commissioners in August approved issuing up to $60 million in bonds for the work, though it’s not necessarily expected to cost that much, according to Podvin. That’s because Mary Free Bed still has to finalize details for the future projects. As it does so, the approval of up to $60 million offers some flexibility.

The bonds will not be a debt of the state or county, according to county documents, and taxpayers won’t be responsible for them. Rather, Mary Free Bed is responsible for them.

“Kent County does not take on any obligation,” County Administrator Al Vanderberg said during an Aug. 27 meeting. “It doesn’t count against our debt capacity or anything like that.”

Meanwhile, Mary Free Bed is gearing up to open the Joan Secchia Children’s Rehabilitation Hospital at the end of the year.

Kentucky law, and now its lawsuit, say otherwise. Definitely a case to watch.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2026/09/04/after-state-fair-flyover-kentucky-files-lawsuit-against-abortion-pill-advocacy-group/

After State Fair Flyover, Kentucky Files Lawsuit Against Abortion Pill Advocacy Group

Fred Lucas    |    September 4, 2026

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman sued an organization that promotes mail-order abortion-inducing drugs to women in states where it’s restricted.

Coleman announced the litigation Thursday against Mayday Health, a New York-based activist organization, stating the organization broke state law by advertising illegal mail-order abortion pills.

Last weekend, Mayday Health chartered an airplane that flew over the Kentucky State Fair in Louisville with a banner saying, “Abortion Pills By Mail,” and posted ads at gas stations in Western Kentucky that said, “Pregnant? Don’t want to be? Learn more at Mayday Health.”

“These out of state activists are not only breaking Kentucky law, they seem to delight in rubbing our faces in it,” Coleman, a Republican, said in a public statement. “The State Fair is a beloved Kentucky tradition for families and children to celebrate our Commonwealth. We refuse to allow Mayday to taint our values and put our people at risk.”

In 2022, the Kentucky state Legislature prohibited the mailing or delivery of abortion-inducing drugs in Kentucky.

Further, the Kentucky Consumer Protection Act prohibits deceptive or misleading communications with Kentuckians.

“We look forward to defending our First Amendment-protected work in court and winning, like we have against similar efforts to suppress our speech,” Mayday co-founder Leo Raisner told The Daily Wire. “Abortion pills are safe, effective, and FDA-approved, and everyone deserves access to that information.”

Raisner formerly worked as a content director for President Joe Biden’s Office of Digital Strategy.

Mayday Health directs women to outside providers of the pills through telehealth appointments and mail-forwarding services, but doesn’t distribute the pills itself.

The state’s lawsuit was filed in Logan Circuit Court and details Mayday Health’s violations of Kentucky’s Consumer Protection Act.

The complaint asks the court to order Mayday Health to permanently stop its illegal advertisements and to pay penalties.

Coleman announced a civil investigation into Mayday Health’s advertisements at Western Kentucky gas stations in several counties, including Logan County, where the lawsuit was filed.

https://www.9and10news.com/2026/09/03/hometown-pharmacy-closures-are-part-of-a-larger-us-trend/

Hometown Pharmacy closures are part of a larger U.S. trend

Sheldon Krause    |    09-03-2026 

TRAVERSE CITY — Hometown Pharmacy announced the closure of four Northern Michigan locations this week, part of a nationwide trend that operators say has gotten worse in recent years.

Three of the closed locations are in Traverse City and one is in Muskegon.

The independent pharmacy chain says that increasing costs and low reimbursement rates have made it difficult to maintain the business model.

According to the industry group American pharmacies, more than 30% of independent pharmacies in the U.S. closed between 2020 and 2024.

“That is a trend that is only accelerated with time, and we’re seeing closures across the state of Michigan at a very alarming rate,” said Miguel Rodriguez, executive VP and general counsel for American Pharmacies.

John Gross is the director of the Michigan Independent Pharmacy Association and owns six independent pharmacies in mid-Michigan.

He says current reimbursement rates make it difficult for smaller businesses to carry on.

If I pay $10 for a prescription for a drug to dispense to a patient, I’m going to get reimbursed less than the $10 for it,” he said. “When you’re talking about a $500 drug, we get reimbursed less than the $500. Sometimes it could be $20, $40, $50, $100 less than the cost — and that’s simply not a formula for staying in business.”

Rodriguez points to pharmacy benefit managers as a cause for the closures.

Providers like CVS Caremark say that PBM’s negotiate discounts to lower prices for patients — but Rodriguez says that they also set the reimbursement rates for other pharmacies.

“Pharmacy benefit managers they are not reimbursing pharmacies for the services that are being provided in any sort of adequate amount, and that’s led to financial crisis in these stores,” he said.

These dynamics have impacted both independent and chain pharmacies.

Also according to American Pharmacies, more than 250 chain pharmacies have closed in Michigan since 2024. That includes 70 Walgreens and all 185 Rite Aid locations.

Both Rodriguez and Gross say that the closures of pharmacies can deprive communities of important healthcare resources and lead to worse health outcomes over time.

“If you’re someone who doesn’t have transportation or you can’t get around — how are they getting their prescriptions, and who’s their healthcare professional that’s helping them with immunizations or everything that’s going on?” Gross asked.

Hometown Pharmacy will still operate about two dozen locations in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. That includes their pharmacy within the Traverse City Munson Medical Center.

https://bridgemi.com/michigan-health-watch/michigan-school-districts-offer-insurance-free-care-to-beat-rising-health-costs/

Michigan school districts offer insurance-free care to beat rising health costs

Robin Erb    |    August 31, 2026

• Direct primary care doctors work outside conventional health care systems, shirking insurance
• For a monthly fee, they manage chronic conditions, tend injuries and illness and provide other foundational medical care
• At least three Michigan school districts are betting the model can help reduce costs overall

CORUNNA — Three Michigan school districts are betting that a specialized clinic may be the antidote to surging health care costs.

The medical care here at the Corunna Plum Health clinic — inside a collection of converted high school classrooms on the district’s main campus — is free.

The 13 patients scheduled on a recent day handed over no copays and no deductibles for physician assistant Shelley Littleton to tend to a range of maladies — from poison ivy to pink eye and from high blood pressure and high anxiety

They also left with nearly $550 worth of medications — also free.

What’s more, each had a visit scheduled for at least a half-hour long.

“What I love about it more than anything else is the ability to be seen and have a lengthy conversation,” said John Fattal, superintendent of Corunna Public Schools, northeast of Lansing.

“This is health care the way it’s supposed to be,” he said.

Corunna and two neighboring school districts — Lansing and Van Buren, are part of a consortium that offers health care through Plum Health, a Detroit-based provider of “direct primary care.”

It’s a growing category of health services that bypass traditional insurance in favor of a direct financial transaction between the patient — or in this case the patient’s employer — and the health provider.

Just more than two years ago, Corunna began paying $90 each month for each of its 255 employees to use a two-day-a-week primary care clinic, established to serve its employees and their families.

The districts are charged for deeply discounted medications provided by the clinic — meaning patients have no out-of-pocket prescription drug costs.

It’s a gamble.

The districts expect this type of easy-access, free primary care will help employees and their families reduce trips to the emergency rooms, where costs can easily top $1,000, or urgent care visits that cost hundreds of dollars.

About 110 of the district’s staff carry insurance through the Michigan Education Special Services Association. Like most conventional benefit packages, it covers emergency and urgent care and hospitalization.

But how many ER visits could be avoided, Fattal reasons, if parents knew they could see their doctor first thing in the morning?

One family with strep throat running through it makes a middle-of-the-night ER run, costing the districts’ insurance pool hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars, That cost of that single visit — the ER care, the lab draws and the medications — can trounce more in a single night than a year’s worth of direct primary care fees.

Those crises, repeated throughout the year among hundreds of employees and their families, in turn, drive up the school’s overall health care expenses year after year.

District employees who don’t have that insurance, such as part-time food service workers or paraprofessionals, may have insurance through spouses, from the individual market, or none at all, Fattal said.

But the cost to see Littleton is the same, no matter their insurance status.

No insurance? No problem.

In its most basic form, direct primary care works outside of insurance.

It’s an alluring possibility as insurance grows increasingly out of reach. Nearly 131,000 Michiganders dropped insurance on the federal marketplace this year, and more than 80,000 beneficiaries have disappeared from the state’s safety net since January as Medicaid continues to shrink, according to the latest state data.

The pressure is on, too, for Michigan business and for workers with job-related health coverage.

Health care costs for the nation’s employers are expected to approach double-digit increases next year, according to projections this month by Chicago-based insurance broker Aon. On average, employer costs will rise 9.5% — to more than $19,000 per employee, next year — driven in large part by high-priced ‌drugs and increased use of the medical system, Aon estimates.

On average, workers’ health care costs will jump nearly 8% on average, to $5,297, the broker projected.

Direct primary care doctors say they sidestep those budget-bulging surges, as well as the paperwork complications associated with insurance.

In doing so, they can deliver more personal, more complete care, said Dr. Philip Eskew, a direct primary care physician based in South Carolina.

“You get to spend time with the patient rather than screaming into your medical record to make it happy so that you can bill whatever code you need to bill,” he said.

Eskew’s website, dpcfrontier.com, maps direct primary care providers.

There’s no way to know precisely how many direct primary care doctors there are, since most of them work outside of insurance — a metric for much of the nation’s health care research.

But the numbers are certainly increasing, Eskew said.

Without extra administrative personnel to handle insurance billing, clinics can keep their costs down, too, said Eskew.

At the Detroit and Royal Oak Plum Health sites, patients pay $95 a month to have round-the-clock access to family medicine care.

The monthly fee gives patients access to the clinics — often the same day they call. In contrast, doctors in their insurer’s network might not have an appointment opening for more than a week, said Dr. Paul Thomas, founder of Plum Health.

That’s because the nation’s primary care doctors often are said to have about 2,500 patients on average — a number that some have argued is unrealistically high. In comparison, direct primary care doctors serve just more than 400 patients, according to a 2024 survey of direct primary care doctors by the American Academy of Family Physicians.

At Corunna recently, each of the day’s appointments was scheduled for at least a half hour. Two new patients were scheduled for 60 minutes.

One patient had called at 8 a.m. that day, scheduled the appointment for an hour later. By 9:27, he was on his way out of the clinic and onto work, medication in hand.

In a state short of educators, the districts now can offer easier-access, no-cost medical care to their employees. In the case of Corunna, the clinic is located on the school district’s main campus.

“We see this as a recruitment and retention tool,” Fattal said.

Erika Eiseler had stopped by with her daughter, Leigha, 8, for a school physical. The office manager at Corunna’s Elsa Meyer Elementary School and her family are insured by Eiseler’s husband, a manager of an HVAC company.

Here, their access is convenient, not rushed, and free from the $40 copay for a doctor’s visit through the family’s insurance policy, Eiseler said, as Leigha read the letters from an eye chart on the wall.

Eiseler figures the family had at least eight doctors’ appointments last year for the normal seasonal illness that so many families face.

“And then there were medications about half the time, so … what? Eight times last year? So you have eight times $40, plus the medicine?” Eiseler said.

Plum buys medications in bulk, charging the schools a 15% markup that’s charged to the school, Thomas said.

Even then, “we’re talking pennies a pill,” Thomas said, from his Detroit office.

The care in these cement block rooms, where a decades-old classroom pencil sharpener still hangs on the walk, costs the family nothing, Eisler said.

“We’re literally putting money back into their pockets,” Fattal said of the district’s employees.

The math doesn’t work

Littleton, the physician assistant who sees patients at the Corunna clinic, doesn’t have regular health coverage herself, although she carries a rider policy to cover “catastrophic” health care costs if necessary.

She did the math, she said. It didn’t add up.

A mammogram each year? Free at certain clinics.

Her OB-GYN appointment each year? $300.

Colonoscopy every third year? $2,000 or so.

At 56 years old, she’d pay $650 a month for insurance, she said. Worse, the $10,000 out-of-pocket max meant she’d probably never see any real benefit from it.

Littleton says she represents “middle-of-the-road” Michiganders — not poor enough to qualify for free health care, but also not wealthy enough to afford it.

“I really understand the insurance runaround because I am the poster child,” she said.

Helping or hurting the larger picture?

The American Academy of Family Physicians and American Medical Association and other medical groups support the ability of physicians to work in direct primary care. Some have argued that expanding direct primary care could expand access in underserved areas.

Earlier this year, the Michigan State Medical Society, which represents doctors of a range of medical specialties, called on the state to build up its primary care network — a “cornerstone” of the larger health care delivery system, it said.

Nearly 1 in 3 Michigan residents lack primary care access, while the state directs about 5% of total health care dollars to primary care, even though experts say 12–15% is necessary for a robust primary care system, according to the report.

Still, there are arguably downsides to increased use of direct primary care: Those physicians take on much smaller patient loads, arguably stretching the number of primary care providers in the state even thinner. In other words, with each doctor that moves to direct primary care, he or she sheds hundreds of patients who then are left to find another doctor.

Plum Health founder Thomas — whose time offering street medicine grounded his belief in more affordable health care — looks at it this way: With few patients and a better work-life balance, today’s primary care doctors won’t burn out early and tomorrow’s doctors will choose primary care as their specialty.

It’s a shift that would take years, but also would transform medicine in a way that saves both costs and lives, Thomas said.

And more immediately?

“It’s working out for insured people because they don’t get dinged with (cost-sharing for) those ER and the urgent care visits,” Thomas said.

And for the uninsured, he said, “they have something where they had nothing before.”

The Bridge Michigan story was picked up by the AP, and now reaches a broader audience.

https://apnews.com/article/michigan-school-districts-health-clinics-78f360030d199ff88485c23fc06f2931

https://www.mackinac.org/blog/2026/michigan-needs-more-nursing-homes-why-are-we-still-blocking-them

Michigan needs more nursing homes; why are we still blocking them?

Certificate of Need laws deliberately limit health care for seniors

Jeffery L. Degner    |    July 28, 2026

Imagine being confined to a nursing home bed, falling out and breaking a femur. When you complain of the pain, you aren’t offered any pain medication, and you have to wait 20 hours before being sent to an emergency room.

This situation isn’t fiction for one Michigan-based patient. While the facility and many like it maintain a respectable online rating, inspections by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Studies paint a different picture. Unfortunately, Michigan’s nursing homes and long-term care facilities are characterized by overloaded staff, bed shortages, and decreased quality of care.

The pathology that causes these sub-standard outcomes in all but 11 states has a name: Certificate of Need, or CON. Most Michigan residents are unaware that Certificate of Need laws deliberately limit their supply of nursing homes, MRI machines, and psychiatric beds. These goods and services are in high demand, and limiting supplies inevitably results in higher prices.

Michigan’s Certificate of Need Board determines the supply of medical care. It has two inherent flaws. The first is conflict of interest. While board members themselves may not directly benefit from their roles on the board, the hospital systems and insurers they represent stand to gain financially by blocking new competitors or from limiting their own services.

Michigan’s CON Board is filled by 11 unelected members who are appointed by the governor and approved by the Senate. They are required to declare conflicts of interest in every meeting. However, the board’s bylaws only vaguely define conflicts and leave it to board members to decide whether one exists.

This sets the stage for problematic incentives that tend to result in tit-for-tat voting patterns. Most people would view this set of incentives and probable outcomes as being full of conflicts of interest. Likely due to this weak definition, in the nine meetings held in 2024 and 2025, there was only one record of a voting abstention due to conflict of interest.

The second flaw is what’s known as “technocratic washing.” The CON Board outsources its bed-need decision to a complicated, 47-year-old clustering algorithm. Some CON board members have voiced concerns about the need to increase the number of nursing homes and beds, particularly in rural areas. But ultimately, the determination of whether the state needs new beds is not made by physicians or patients. Instead, the decision comes from a mathematical formula.

In meeting transcripts from January 2025, the statistician who developed the algorithm reported to the CON Board that for 2024, the state only needed 41,400 beds. The actual number at that time was 44,689. In other words, the algorithm’s output said that the state should eliminate 3,289 beds. In 2025, the same calculation would have the board believe that there were 2,792 too many nursing homes and long-term care beds.

According to the state of Michigan, the 75-84 age group may grow by approximately 45% by 2039. With Michigan seniors already paying $485 per day for nursing home beds, it’s no time to limit their supply. That daily price is nearly $30 more than the national average, and $75 per day more than it is in states without CON regulations (excluding California and Pennsylvania). The difference adds up to more than $2,000 more per patient per month in Michigan. Higher-than-average costs and higher-than-average occupancy would unquestionably invite more competition in a free market. Instead, Michigan’s CON board calls for the opposite.

Nursing facility expansion is a decision that should be handled by doctors, patients, or elder-care advocates. Instead, Michigan maintains a system that limits competition, reduces availability, and provides worse patient outcomes. The obvious solution would be to allow new competitors into this critical area of need.

State lawmakers may be unaware that special interests on the CON Board limit competition under the guise of high-sounding mathematics. In states where these boards don’t exist, citizens pay nearly 25% less per nursing home bed than in states like Michigan. In an age where affordability is on everyone’s mind, and where the senior population is surging, our lawmakers must set aside partisan differences and special interest loyalties in order to unleash competitive forces that better serve our aging population.

First, a Daily Signal op-ed gives the national the national perspective. 

What does your college student say?

https://www.dailysignal.com/2026/08/04/hidden-health-college-dorms/

The Hidden Health Risk in College Dorms

August 4, 2026

Every student knows the smell.

The musty odor from an air vent. The dark stain spreading across a dorm ceiling. The damp corner of a communal bathroom.

Most students barely notice it. Others joke about it.

What many do not realize is that mold is more than an ugly stain or an unpleasant odor. Federal health agencies have linked mold exposure to a plethora of health issues. Yet mold in college housing remains one of the least-discussed student health issues on American campuses.

One of the authors of the present piece knows several college students who have experienced headaches and persistent coughs that were seemingly caused by moldy living conditions.

College dormitories are highly susceptible to mold growth. Aging buildings, shared bathrooms, poor ventilation, plumbing leaks, high humidity, and delayed maintenance all create ideal conditions for moisture to accumulate. Educational buildings frequently experience moisture-related issues.

When water intrusion from leaks or flooding is not addressed quickly and thoroughly, mold can begin growing within 24 to 48 hours. Yet students are forced to trust and rely on universities to identify, remediate, and communicate potential hazards.

In the last five years, dorm mold has been reported at colleges and universities in 42 out of the 50 states, with media reports of mold issues at 75% of Ivy League institutions. Even at schools known for offering some of the nation’s most prestigious educations, many students have often been denied something far more fundamental: a safe and healthy place to live. Academic excellence means little if students are forced to learn in housing conditions that may compromise their health.

Too often, mold in college housing is dismissed as little more than a maintenance issue rather than the public health concern it can become. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention links exposure to damp, moldy environments with respiratory symptoms, chronic coughing, asthma attacks, and allergic reactions, while noting that persistent moisture and flooding create ideal conditions for mold growth.

Public health experts estimate that roughly half of U.S. homes have conditions associated with dampness or mold, and one widely cited analysis found that approximately 21% of asthma cases in the United States are attributable to dampness and mold exposure. Emerging research also suggests that mold may affect more than just the respiratory system, with a 2020 study in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity finding that mold inhalation triggered neuroinflammation and cognitive changes in animal models.

Additionally, it can be difficult for students to recognize when their living environments may be contributing to their health problems. Fatigue, frequent headaches, respiratory issues, or recurring illnesses are often dismissed as a normal part of adjusting to college life, which may include late nights, increased stress, poor sleep, or less-than-ideal dining hall food. As a result, a dorm’s indoor air quality or mold exposure as a culprit for health hazards is often overlooked, delaying both recognition of the problem and action.

This issue rarely receives the attention it deserves, and many colleges require students to live on campus for at least the first year—often at significant monetary cost. With that requirement and expenditure comes a responsibility to provide housing that is safe, healthy, and properly maintained. Students should not have to choose between pursuing their education and protecting their health.

A clean, well-maintained dormitory is not a luxury; it is the foundation of student success. Universities invest enormous resources in student wellness, but wellness begins with the place students sleep, study, and live.

Institutions cannot claim to prioritize student health while treating mold as an insignificant facilities problem. If colleges are truly committed to investing in the next generation, providing safe, healthy housing should not be optional—it should be the standard.


Romey Crumbaugh is a member of Heritage’s Young Leaders Program.

Jennifer Galardi is a senior policy analyst, Restoring American Wellness at The Heritage Foundation.

This model's concept, pioneered by Scott L. Zeller, MD, takes off from Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul - divide and conquer. No matter who tries to legislate physical/mental health parity, they are very different things in an emergency.

I can only imagine how relieved these ED staff are to be able to focus on heart attacks, overdoses, and traumatic injuries. 

https://www.beckersbehavioralhealth.com/care-coordination/how-1-uk-healthcare-unit-cut-ed-boarding-time-92/

How 1 unit cut UK HealthCare’s ED boarding time 92%

Ella Ruder    |    August 11, 2026

University of Kentucky HealthCare based in Lexington opened an Emergency Psychiatric Assessment, Treatment and Healing (EmPATH) unit in July 2024 to treat behavioral health patients outside its emergency departments — a design choice that differs from many models nationally.

The unit sits near Eastern State Hospital in Lexington and serves both of UK HealthCare’s EDs, at Good Samaritan Hospital and Chandler Hospital. About 5,000 patients a year come through its doors, and it has treated more than 10,000 people in its first two years — more volume than leaders initially expected, said Marc Woods, DNP, RN, chief nursing officer for Eastern State Hospital, the EmPATH unit and the Good Samaritan behavioral health unit.

The unit follows the EmPATH model developed by Scott Zeller, MD, though Mr. Woods said implementation varies widely by health system. “I think the statement is if you’ve seen one EmPATH, you’ve seen one EmPATH,” he said.

A model built on inclusion

UK HealthCare’s unit accepts patients other crisis programs might turn away, including those who are aggressive or violent, according to Mr. Woods and Lindsey Jasinski, PhD, chief administrative officer and director of psychology services at Eastern State Hospital.

“We use a statement of ‘find a way to say yes to this patient in front of you.’ Finding a way to say yes not just in fancy meetings or report offs — we say it to our staff. Traditionally in behavioral health, that hasn’t been the case,” Mr. Woods said. Dr. Jasinski described the shift as moving to “how do we operate on inclusion criteria,” rather than exclusion criteria.

Despite treating a broader patient population, Dr. Jasinski said restraint use on the unit is below 0.01%. She attributed that to staff building rapport with patients immediately, offering food and drink on arrival, allowing patients to keep their clothes and belongings when safe, and watching closely for signs of escalation throughout a patient’s stay.

The unit also employs peer support specialists — staff with lived experience of mental illness or substance use disorder — a role Mr. Woods said EDs typically lack. He recalled a patient telling him, “You don’t know what I’ve been through. You can’t help me,” before a peer support specialist stepped in and said, “He can’t, but I can, and I’ve been where you are.”

Suicidal ideation is the most common presentation, accounting for almost 60% of patients, according to Mr. Woods. Patients arrive by ambulance, police transport, family, rideshare, bus or on foot, Dr. Jasinski said, and the unit has drawn patients from roughly 30 states, though Mr. Woods attributed some of that reach to Lexington being a college town. If a patient presents at either UK HealthCare ED instead, staff arrange an ambulance transfer to the unit.

The program is built around a 23-hour observation stay. “Our No. 1 goal is that after 23 hours, you leave here with hope,” Dr. Jasinski said. “We’ve turned a crisis into an outpatient appointment.”

Very few patients progress to inpatient admission, Mr. Woods said, which he said helps preserve scarce behavioral health beds for the most acute cases. The unit has expanded capacity since opening with 12 chairs to roughly 20 today.

Fewer repeat visits, more follow-through

Leaders pointed to a decline in frequent ED use among behavioral health patients since the unit opened. In its first six months, Dr. Jasinski said, patients who had previously been coming to the ED an average of 5.5 times every six months were instead returning to the EmPATH unit about twice in six months.

Follow-up appointment attendance has also improved. Before the unit opened, patients discharged from the hospital attended follow-up appointments about 29% of the time, according to Dr. Jasinski; since then, that rate has held at 65% for two years. A community mental health center co-located inside the unit helps patients schedule follow-up care, typically within 24 to 48 hours of discharge, before they leave.

First-year data showed a 63.5% reduction in inpatient admissions and a 92.1% reduction in ED boarding time tied to the unit’s opening. Asked about year two, Dr. Jasinski said those operational gains have held steady, while Mr. Woods said tracking restraint use against ED baselines has been a harder metric to capture consistently.

“Each is a new opportunity for us to reevaluate what that person needs,” she said. “We might start treatment, but the biggest thing that we do is connect them to those resources in the community.”

Kentucky has proposed using CMS rural health transformation dollars to fund additional EmPATH units across the state over the next five years, Dr. Jasinski said, citing the model’s effect on access to care. The unit also arranges transportation home for rural patients who arrive by ambulance but have no way to get back.

Effects on the emergency department

Before the EmPATH unit opened, Good Samaritan’s emergency department relied on four specially secured rooms within its 21-bed unit to hold behavioral health patients, Eric Reid, MD, Medical Director of Good Samaritan emergency department and medical director of EMS, said. The hospital also has a partnership with Eastern State Hospital that could typically move patients within about 12 hours.

Even with that arrangement, those rooms were routinely full during peak evening hours. Since the EmPATH unit opened, Dr. Reid said, it’s now rare for more than one or two patients to need those secured rooms at once, freeing space for other ED patients.

The timeline for behavioral health patients has also shortened: Providers can typically connect with the EmPATH team within about 30 minutes of finishing an ED evaluation, he said. Patients now often receive definitive care within an hour and a half to two hours of arrival — down from a typical three to four hours, and sometimes as long as eight to 10 hours, before the unit existed.

The change required upfront work, Dr. Reid said, including training EMS partners to manage behavioral health patients in transit and coaching ED staff on how to talk with patients about being transported to a separate facility without adding to their anxiety.

He also linked the model to less strain on ED staff.

“We often talk about the moral injury that leads to burnout in the emergency department, where we are trying to do the correct things for patients, but the system logistics around it make it difficult,” Dr. Reid said, adding that the EmPATH unit “is a great way to circumvent that.” He pointed to decreased use of restraints, sedatives and sitters as further evidence the model improved care rather than simply speeding it up. “It’s very satisfying to get these patients the care that they need,” he said.

Dr. Reid said other ED leaders considering a similar model should expect it to require sustained collaboration across disciplines, including standing meetings that bring together community-based providers, hospital staff and outpatient follow-up teams.

“It takes a lot of collaboration and communication,” he said, “but it really has had a great payoff.”