A long-time director at Access Health CT was named the new chief executive officer of the state’s health insurance exchange. The exchange’s board of directors voted to appoint James Michel as the permanent CEO at its Thursday meeting.
Mackenzie Rigg
Mackenzie is a former health reporter at CT Mirror. Prior to her time at CT Mirror, she covered health care, social services and immigration for the News-Times in Danbury and has more than a decade of reporting experience. She traveled to Uganda for the News-Times to report an award-winning five-part series about a Connecticut doctor's experience in Africa. A native of upstate New York, she started her journalism career at The Recorder in Greenfield, Mass., and worked at Newsday on Long Island for three years. She is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where she wrote her master's thesis about illegal detentions in Haiti's women's prison.
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CT hospitals collect $1.2B in outpatient facility fees over three years
Connecticut hospitals and health networks have received an estimated $1.2 billion in outpatient facility fees from 2015 through 2017, according to data announced on Tuesday. These fees are collected for a wide-range of services, including oncology, eye surgery, psychotherapy and primary care, provided at off-site facilities run by hospitals and health networks.
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Drug deaths expected to remain level in 2018, following years of staggering increases
State officials project accidental drug deaths to remain virtually flat this year, marking the first break in the momentum of an epidemic that has shown double-digit increases year after year since at least 2012.
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Insurance Department approves on average 3 percent rate hikes for 2019 plans
The Connecticut Insurance Department announced Thursday that premiums for individual and small group plans can rise only about 3 percent on average in 2019, lower than the increases approved in recent years.
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Medicaid transportation contractor improving, but complaints continue
Veyo has made some marked improvements in recent months, but the company hired to oversee the transportation of Medicaid patients continues to be criticized for its performance and has been fined several times by the state for contract violations.
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CT files lawsuit after losing nearly $11M in ‘kickback pyramid scheme’
Connecticut is suing a Florida-based compounding pharmacy and several people, including former and current state employees, for their alleged involvement in a kickback pyramid scheme that cost the state nearly $11 million, Attorney General George Jepsen announced Tuesday.
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More residents above poverty line can’t cover basic costs in CT, report says
Elizabeth Yates and her 2-year-old son are among the 538,529 households in Connecticut that could not afford basic needs such as housing, child care, food, transportation, health care,and technology in 2016. This group constitutes 40 percent of the households in the state, according to a new report released by The United Way of Connecticut.
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STDs reach record levels in CT, early data show
Connecticut and the rest of the nation last year experienced a record-high number of cases of sexually transmitted diseases, including gonorrhea, which health officials fear may be becoming more resistant to antibiotic treatment.
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Eight new conditions approved for CT’s medical marijuana program
The legislature’s Regulations Review Committee approved the addition of eight new conditions to the medical marijuana program on Tuesday. The eight apply to all adults, but only two of those conditions are allowed for those under 18.
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State warns of increased West Nile virus risk, especially for elderly
While state experts are warning residents of an increased risk of West Nile virus infection right now, a UConn Health doctor is stressing that it’s rare for people infected with the virus to develop symptoms, let alone to develop a serious illness.
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CT to pay former inmate $1.3M after claims of improper medical treatment
The state has agreed to pay $1.3 million to a former inmate, who claimed correctional staff delayed identifying and properly treating his skin cancer, despite his rapidly deteriorating condition while incarcerated.
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Trump drug czar nominee meets with CT officials after K2 crisis
President Donald Trump’s nominee for “drug czar” visited New Haven on Monday, prompted by the massive medical emergency caused by the synthetic cannabinoid K2, to discuss the ongoing and deadly addiction epidemic that continues to grip Connecticut.
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GOP nominates an outsider, Bob Stefanowski, for governor
Bob Stefanowski won the five-way Republican primary for governor Tuesday night after ignoring Connecticut’s GOP establishment, opting out of the state’s public-financing program and repeating one outlandish campaign promise like a daily affirmation: He will “rip costs” from state government and make its income tax disappear over eight years.
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Panel: Women would retain right to abortion in CT if Roe v. Wade is overturned
If the 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade decision that established women’s constitutional right to abortion were overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, women would still have that right in Connecticut where it was codified into law decades ago, participants in a state discussion panel said Wednesday.
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Blumenthal urges Wade to ban or restrict short-term health plans
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., has called on Connecticut’s insurance commissioner to ban or restrict, as other states have, short-term health insurance plans recently promoted by the Trump administration.