In Fort Worth, Texas, MedStar Mobile Healthcare says its fuel costs increased from $96,548 last May to an eye-popping $223,583 this May. None of the first responders interviewed said they were changing how they respond to emergencies, but they are making small changes to try to save fuel, such as an effort in Pennsylvania to turn off the engines in ambulances when they arrive at the scene.

ABC News: How Rising Gas Prices Are Impacting First Responders  As gas prices continue to rise, first responders are among those feeling the pain at the pump. MedStar Mobile Healthcare, an emergency medical services system in Fort Worth, Texas, has seen its gas expenses increase dramatically. During the month of May last year, MedStar spent $96,547.94 on fuel; this past May, it spent $223,582.55, according to Matt Zavadsky, chief transformation officer for MedStar. The response volume only marginally increased while the fuel costs rose, he said. (Deliso, 6/9)

CBS News: High Gas Prices Posing Challenges For Ambulance Services  The cost of gas is taking a toll on a vital service used during a medical emergency. EMS workers never hesitate to get into gear when seconds matter, even during these tough financial times. Responding to a medical emergency has never been so costly for ambulance services. Ambulance providers that pay for their own fuel are the most impacted by high gas prices. It's already hurting Ross/West View Emergency Medical Services Authority's budget for fuel. (Guay, 6/9)

WISN: First Responder Fuel Crisis: 'Costs Through The Roof' First responder fuel costs have skyrocketed this year. WISN 12 News spoke to three municipalities and one private ambulance company. Each one said their fuel costs were through the roof. At the Milwaukee Fire Department, their 55- to 65-gallon fire engines get less than 4 miles per gallon. "Since January, we've nearly doubled our fuel costs," said deputy chief Erich Roden with MFD. "A fire apparatus driving down the road, we have four tons just in water alone in our fire engine, so it takes a massive amount of power to get these things powered down the roads." (Reinwald, 6/9)

KWWL: Rural Ambulance Services In Iowa Are Straining Under Spiking Gas Prices  Ambulance services across Iowa, especially those in small rural communities, are feeling the strain from increased fuel prices. In Denver, Iowa the ambulance service bases their budget on prices they've paid in the previous fiscal year. With the price of fuel and other medical items hitting historic highs, that budget is getting eaten up way faster than expected. (Tedford, 6/9)

In other health care industry news —

The CT Mirror: CT Hospital Could Lose Reproductive Health Services After Acquisition The Connecticut Office of Health Strategy is raising questions about a proposed deal between Massachusetts-based Catholic health system Covenant Health and Day Kimball Hospital in rural Putnam. If the deal is approved, the new owners would eliminate some reproductive health services at the hospital. Under the terms of the deal, Covenant Health would acquire Day Kimball, bringing the struggling rural health care system into its larger network and absorbing tens of millions of dollars of its debt. Day Kimball is one of the few remaining independent hospitals in the state, and it has performed poorly financially relative to other Connecticut hospitals in recent years. (Phillips, 6/9)

Modern Healthcare: Fines Kicking In After Slow Start To Hospital Transparency Rule Fewer than 6% of hospitals obeyed the price transparency rule during the early months of implementation, a new study shows. Of the 5,239 hospitals studied, 13.9% had a machine-readable file but not a consumer-friendly display, 29.4% had a consumer-friendly display but no machine-readable file and only 5.7% had both, according to research published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Hospitals in unconcentrated healthcare markets were more likely to comply with the rule compared with their counterparts in highly consolidated markets, the findings from July through September of last year show. (Kacik, 6/9)

Modern Healthcare: Steward Health Care System Settles Kickbacks Accusations For $4.7M Steward Health Care System ended a whistleblower lawsuit supported by federal and Massachusetts prosecutors for $4.7 million, the plaintiffs' attorneys announced Thursday. Three whistleblowers, including two doctors who worked at Steward Health Care System hospitals in Massachusetts, filed the lawsuit in 2018. The plaintiffs alleged the Dallas-based for-profit health system paid clinicians for work they didn't perform and offered other inducements in exchange for patient referrals. The multi-state, physician-owned company denies any unlawful actions. (Berryman, 6/9)

Bloomberg: Oracle's Larry Ellison Says Cerner Will Help Create US Health Database Oracle Corp. is looking to develop a national system of digital health care records after completing its acquisition of electronic medical records provider Cerner Corp. “Data today is fragmented in thousands of databases across the United States,” Larry Ellison, Oracle board chairman and chief technology officer, said Thursday at a press briefing. “We’re going to solve this problem by putting a unified national health records database on top of all of these of thousands of separate hospital databases.” Ellison said this new system will only have anonymous information until individual patients give consent. (Ford, 6/9)

Chicago Tribune: Five More Women Sue Former NorthShore Gynecologist Another five women have filed lawsuits alleging that a former NorthShore University HealthSystem obstetrician/gynecologist sexually assaulted them as patients — with the allegations spanning three decades. The women filed six lawsuits in recent weeks in Cook County Circuit Court against Dr. Fabio Ortega. Ortega pleaded guilty in October to two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse involving two of his former patients. Ortega, 75, is now in prison. Attempts to reach Ortega’s attorney for comment were unsuccessful Thursday. (Schencker, 6/9)

KHN: Medicaid Weighs Attaching Strings To Nursing Home Payments To Improve Patient Care  The Biden administration is considering a requirement that the nation’s 15,500 nursing homes spend most of their payments from Medicaid on direct care for residents and limit the amount that is used for operations, maintenance, and capital improvements or diverted to profits. If adopted, it would be the first time the federal government insists that nursing homes devote the majority of Medicaid dollars to caring for residents. (Jaffe, 6/10)

We want to hear from you: Contact Us

Long Wait for Justice: People in Jail Face Delays for Mental Health Care Before They Can Stand Trial

Trauma Surgeons Detail the Horror of Mass Shootings in the Wake of Uvalde and Call for Reforms

Grassroots Groups Lead Way on Closing Colorado’s Infant Mortality Gap

Medicaid Weighs Attaching Strings to Nursing Home Payments to Improve Patient Care

© 2022 Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

Thank you for your interest in supporting Kaiser Health News (KHN), the nation’s leading nonprofit newsroom focused on health and health policy. We distribute our journalism for free and without advertising through media partners of all sizes and in communities large and small. We appreciate all forms of engagement from our readers and listeners, and welcome your support.

KHN is an editorially independent program of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). You can support KHN by making a contribution to KFF, a non-profit charitable organization that is not associated with Kaiser Permanente.

Click the button below to go to KFF’s donation page which will provide more information and FAQs. Thank you!