Health and Science

"... ongoing scheduling errors, such as incorrectly revising preferred dates when rescheduling appointments, understated the amount of time veterans waited to see providers. Officials attributed these errors to confusion by schedulers, resulting from the lack of an updated standardized scheduling policy. These errors continue to affect the reliability of wait-time data used for oversight, which makes it more difficult to effectively oversee newly enrolled veterans' access to primary care." more »

Bowing to pressure from the hospital industry and Congress, the Obama administration on Wednesday delayed releasing its new hospital quality rating measure just a day before its planned launch. The new "overall hospital quality" star rating aimed to combine the government's disparate efforts to measure hospital care into one easy-to-grasp metric. The new star rating boils 62 of the measures down into a unified rating of one to five stars, with five being the best. more »

A bill seeks to reauthorize and modernize the Small Business Development Centers, Women's Business Centers (WBCs), and Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) programs. Another bill would authorize the National Science Foundation to "encourage its entrepreneurial programs to recruit and support women to extend their focus beyond the laboratory and into the commercial world." And A bill to revise the crime of sexual assault under Article 120 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice to include committing a sexual act upon another person by using position, rank, or authority to obtain compliance by the other person. more »

Jo Freeman writes: Rules written by the Department of Health and Human Services for the ACA provided a way for religious organizations, such as universities, hospitals and social service groups, to opt-out of providing coverage by notifying their insurer or the government that their religious beliefs preclude contraceptive coverage. more »