News From Around the Web
> Budget cuts to the Louisiana Department of Health have put four of Louisiana's 10 safety-net hospitals at risk of closure, according to WWL First News. Article
> Florida Gov. Rick Scott has signed a bill requiring Sunshine State hospitals to publicly post prices and average payments, according to 10News. Article
> Twelve plaintiffs, some of whom are doctors at Boston Children's Hospital, have filed a lawsuit to prevent the hospital's planned $1 billion expansion, according to the Lowell Sun. Article
Provider News
> The Zika virus is far more damaging and scarier than previously thought. This week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed long-held suspicions that the virus causes microcephaly in infants as well as other major brain-related birth defects, a discovery officials called a "turning point" in a scientific understanding of the disease. Article
> In March, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services unveiled a new tool aimed at tracking racial health disparities among Medicare patients, but the tool is only part of the agency's broader push to address care disparities among different racial groups, genders and socioeconomic classes, a CMS official told Hospitals & Health Networks. Article
And Finally… Better Loch Ness time. Article