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The online video features idyllic snatches of Tennessee daily life: guitar players, old barns, church socials. ... But then there is a strategically placed, and purely fictional, detail: The welcome sign announces Tennessee as “Your Abortion Destination.” The video was designed by abortion opponents here who believe that Tennessee has for too long been a Bible Belt outlier due to a State Supreme Court decision in 2000 that ruled that the state’s constitutional guarantee of a right to privacy includes the right to an abortion. ... Now, anti-abortion forces are trying to change that at the ballot box by passing Amendment 1, which states that nothing in the Tennessee Constitution “secures or protects” a right to abortion. (Fausset, 10/24)

Lurie Children’s Hospital is seeking to make these types of helpers available to at least 5,000 Medicaid children who have moderate to severe diagnoses such as cystic fibrosis or spina bifida in order to make sure they’re getting the care they need. It’s part of a larger change to how Illinois Medicaid is being delivered. The state is shifting at least 50 percent of Medicaid’s 3 million people into care coordination programs by Jan. 1, 2015. The state started enrolling most of these people in July, though some Medicaid patients were moved to these programs as early as 2011. (Thomas, 10/26)

About 6 percent of eligible adults took advantage of new dental coverage offered under KanCare in the first year of the managed care Medicaid program. The switch to managed care Medicaid administered by three private companies extended basic dental cleanings to more than 130,000 adults age 19 to 64. According to Kansas Department of Health and Environment statistics, about 7,600 adults had a cleaning paid for by one of the managed care companies in 2013. Representatives of the managed care companies and dental providers offered several possible reasons why the rate of use of the cleanings, which dentists recommend twice a year, was not higher. (Marso, 10/24)

Nearly everyone agrees it’s difficult to sustain a health-care system that depends on rewarding doctors for prescribing treatments and tests — whether or not they help patients. Enter accountable care organizations (ACOs), a model that seeks to fundamentally revamp the system so doctors are paid instead for keeping patients healthy and costs down. On Thursday, insurance giant Aetna announced ACO-like arrangements with Providence-Swedish Health Alliance, The Polyclinic, Rainier Health Network and Pacific Medical Centers (PacMed) to offer health care around Puget Sound. (Stiffler, 10/25)

The bleeding started suddenly and lasted 15 minutes, soaking through the sheets and pooling on the floor. Turning pale, Armando Reagan cried out to the nursing home staff. “Help! Help! I do not want to die!” By the time paramedics got Reagan to a Glendale emergency room, he was incoherent, with his heart beating rapidly and his breathing labored, documents show. Within an hour, he was dead. The Los Angeles County coroner determined that Reagan, a 30-year-old paraplegic and former gang member, died that day in July 2010 from hemorrhagic shock due to chronic infections stemming from an old gunshot wound and “neglect by provider.” (Gorman, 10/27)

As lawmakers meet during the legislative interim this fall, one of the biggest topics under discussion is how Medicaid will look into the future. And as those talks take place, the debate looks very familiar. At a subcommittee meeting this week, representatives from stakeholder organizations gave testimony similar to that given last winter to the Medicaid Reform Advisory Group. At the same meeting, lawmakers from the House voiced support for a plan that moves Medicaid into a system delivered by accountable care organizations, which put providers at financial risk, but that keeps the Division of Medical Assistance as overseer of Medicaid. (Hoban, 10/24)

The CEO at Partners HealthCare, the state’s largest private employer, plans to step down. Dr. Gary Gottlieb agreed Friday to become the CEO at Partners in Health, a global health organization whose latest project is an Ebola response effort in West Africa. Gottlieb is scheduled to make the transition on July 1, 2015. His decision comes amid acourt review of Partners’ controversial expansion plans and questions about Gottlieb’s ability to manage political dynamics outside the hospital network. (Bebinger, 10/25)

Talk to a few students or professors in the family nurse practitioner program at Illinois State University and it's easy to see the passion they have for health care. All students in the program already are registered nurses. They will be expected to play key roles as demand for health care goes up at the same time a shortage of primary-care physicians is anticipated. ... Nurse practitioners are advanced practice nurses who receive additional training after becoming registered nurses, allowing them to provide primary care in areas including diagnosis, disease prevention and management of chronic diseases. ... Students are trained to look at the whole patient and their circumstances — not only diagnosing what's wrong and how to treat it, but considering how the patient can pay for it, whether they have someone to help them and whether their home is safe, said Wilson, who leads the family nurse practitioner sequence. (Sobota, 10/27)