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In 2017, Virginia passed a law allowing some localities to launch needle exchange programs, an attempt to prevent the spread of infectious diseases like hepatitis C and HIV.
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Virginia’s psychiatric hospitals are dangerously full.
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Earlier this week the “30-50 feral hogs” meme swarmed the internet, an unexpected by-product of the nationwide gun debate.
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Virginia’s population might grow over the next decade, but it could be slower than it’s been in the past, according to population projections by the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service.
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Virginia’s Medicaid agency on Monday outlined its strategy to meet Gov. Ralph Northam’s announced goal to end the racial disparity in maternal mortality by 2025.
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The one million immigrants in Virginia make up 12.5 percent of the state population.
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From 2009 to 2013, the most recent year data was available, 66 percent of pregnancy-related deaths for black women were due to natural causes, compared to 45 percent for white women.
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President Donald Trump’s administration is currently considering changing how the federal poverty line is calculated, which could mean thousands in Virginia might lose access to medical and food assistance programs.
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While the number of gun-related homicides has crept down in the past three years the number of gun-related suicides has been slowly rising since 1999.
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Social workers are trying to protect kids, but separating them from their parents is traumatizing, even if it’s for their own safety.
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About 70,000 children are in the care of their grandparents in Virginia.
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With 48 beds, the Commonwealth Center for Children and Adolescents has been forced to adjust to the reality that more children and teens are being admitted for treatment involuntarily through temporary detention orders.
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The bill states that a person is guilty of felony homicide if they manufactured, sell, gift or distribute drugs that cause a fatal overdose.
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So far, Virginia has been spared from the blossoming measles outbreaks that have spread to 15 states
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In 2017, Virginia clinicians provided $747 million worth of wasteful services to patients, according to the Virginia Center for Health Innovation.
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The pilot program pays for long-acting reversible contraception, a category that includes intrauterine devices and implants, for women who make 250 percent or less of the federal poverty level.
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In the 2018 fiscal year, there were nearly 12,000 substantiated cases of abuse, neglect or exploitation of elderly or disabled adults.
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A bill is on the governor's desk that reduces the sales tax on personal hygiene products.
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On Tuesday, eight of the state’s 10 psychiatric facilities were operating at 95 percent capacity or above, according to data from the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services.
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Every year, the refrain from Virginia lawmakers about health insurance is the same: It’s too expensive and prices in the individual market especially are out of control.
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Like a school of fish in a sea of predators, many of the hundreds of bills filed during every General Assembly session fail to advance to even a floor vote, never mind the governor’s desk.
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Both boards have decided to issue guidance documents because they typically become effective faster, whereas changing regulations can take 18 to 24 months.
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Every week, Virginia Mercury will bring you a sampling of the legislation left on the cutting room floor, either failing to report or done in by other genteel euphemisms of the legislature: “gently laid on the table” or “passed by indefinitely.”
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A bill would prohibit a health plan from denying coverage that they’d otherwise provide because a person’s sex assigned at birth or gender identity is different from "the one to which such health services are ordinarily or exclusively available."
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The legislation received support from not only Altria, the Richmond-based tobacco giant, but also from a lineup of medical groups, including the Medical Society of Virginia, the Virginia chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Virginia Nurses Association.
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The subcommittee’s four Republicans voted against the bill, outnumbering the two Democrats.
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Some Republican senators suggested that, while they aren’t in favor of a tax, their plastic bag politics may be changing.
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The shortfall is mostly rooted in the state’s overly optimistic estimate of how much money it would save by putting its most expensive members into a new health plan, called Commonwealth Coordinated Care Plus.
The certificate is a regulation meant to control the number of medical facilities and services available in designated regions.
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Needle exchanges have only been legal in Virginia for about 18 months, and in another year and a half the law legalizing them is due to expire.
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The new rules would redefine which “waters of the U.S.” are protected under the Clean Water Act
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The committee, known as the Deeds Commission, made several recommendations aimed at the flood of patients arriving at state psychiatric hospitals under temporary detention orders.
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Traci Jones doesn’t know exactly how many temporary-detention orders she’s received.
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For the first time in a decade, the number of children without health insurance rose nationally in 2017, a new report shows.
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The Department of Medical Assistance Services submitted its waiver — which allows states to make changes to their Medicaid programs — to the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
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The connection between health and housing — it’s tough to be healthy if you do not have a safe place to sleep — has been well known for years.
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Chesterfield County Sheriff Karl Leonard sees firsthand the devastation that the ongoing opioid epidemic wreaks in his county, as more and more people enter his jail with an addiction and a hepatitis C infection.
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Chesterfield County Sheriff Karl Leonard sees firsthand the devastation that the ongoing opioid epidemic wreaks in his county, as more and more people enter his jail with an addiction and a hepatitis C infection.
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The exchange, also known as a comprehensive harm reduction program, has only been open twice a week since mid-October.
Doctors’ incentive is quantity — like the number of scans or blood tests they order — rather than the quality of the care they provide the patient.
Under threats from lawmakers, who promised they would solve surprise balance billing themselves if hospitals and health plans couldn’t agree, a working group representing different sides of the debate has met all summer to find a mutually agreeable fix.
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