This is the year!

Feds try to prevent fraud by blocking new home-health agencies in Dallas, Houston areas

Federal regulators moved today to block new home-health agencies from starting up in the Dallas and Houston areas. The reason, in a word: fraud.

Specifically, the regulators said they wouldn’t let any new agencies bill Medicare, the federal health insurance program for seniors. The moratorium starts tomorrow and is expected to last at least six months.

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Today’s announcement by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said the agency was moving “beyond ‘pay and chase’ to prevent fraud in areas of known risk.” It said the Dallas and Houston areas have a “disproportionate number of home-health providers” and “extremely high utilization.”

Similar moratoria apply in the Detroit, Chicago and South Florida areas.

More at http://watchdogblog.dallasnews.com/2014/01/feds-try-to-prevent-fraud-by-blocking-new-home-health-agencies-in-dallas-houston-areas.html/ .

Feds try to prevent fraud by blocking new home-health agencies in areas of FL, IL, MI and TX

Federal regulators moved today to block new home-health agencies from starting up in the Dallas and Houston areas. The reason, in a word: fraud.

Specifically, the regulators said they wouldn’t let any new agencies bill Medicare, the federal health insurance program for seniors. The moratorium starts tomorrow and is expected to last at least six months.

-snip-

Today’s announcement by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said the agency was moving “beyond ‘pay and chase’ to prevent fraud in areas of known risk.” It said the Dallas and Houston areas have a “disproportionate number of home-health providers” and “extremely high utilization.”

Similar moratoria apply in the Detroit, Chicago and South Florida areas.

More at http://watchdogblog.dallasnews.com/2014/01/feds-try-to-prevent-fraud-by-blocking-new-home-health-agencies-in-dallas-houston-areas.html/ .

Deadline Monday to register for primary voting

Monday is the deadline to register to vote in the 2014 primary elections.

Both the Democratic and Republican primaries will be held March 4. Early voting will be Feb. 18-28.

Texas State Board of Education gives high school students new math options beyond Algebra 2

The State Board of Education members on Thursday solved the math equation that had long confounded them as they finalized the details of Texas’ new high school graduation requirements.

In a 15-0 vote, the board gave preliminary approval to a proposal that gives students two more higher-level math options beyond Algebra 2. That course has dominated the discussion as the board has hammered out the finer points of implementing House Bill 5, the Legislature’s overhaul aimed at giving students more flexibility in their course-loads.

The additional courses — statistics and algebraic reasoning — will be developed to be on par with Algebra 2 and prepare students for college entrance exams, said Board Chairwoman Barbara Cargill, R-The Woodlands.

House Bill 5 scrapped the rigid 4x4 graduation plan — four years each of math, science, English and social studies — and created several new specialized pathways to graduation called endorsements. The new options kick in fully for next year’s ninth-graders.

More at http://www.statesman.com/news/news/texas-state-board-of-education-gives-high-school-s/nc7KP/ .

[font color=green]While I stand strong for mathematics education as a mathematics major, I am going to go against the grain and accept this as a meaningful compromise. I believe that understanding statistics and using reasoning skills are also valuable and more useful to students than whether they can successfully factor a polynomial equation or study logarithms. The courses should provide a challenging curriculum that proceeds at about half the pace and cover the majority of subject matter found in introductory level college courses.[/font]

Houston immigration raid part of multistate human smuggling case

Raid teams of federal immigration agents at dawn Thursday served search warrants at two businesses in the Chinatown area of southwest Houston, detaining 11 people suspected of being part of a human smuggling operation.

"We are executing a court-ordered enforcement of an ongoing criminal investigation into illicit criminal activities," said Greg Palmore, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

More than a dozen federal agents could be seen searching the offices of two businesses operating as employment agencies. The raid is part of a multistate operation in major cities in Texas and Louisiana.

A government helicopter circled the store front locations at in the 9100 block of Bellaire as agents moved suspects to waiting vans. Other other agents examined paperwork in the offices.

More at http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Houston-immigration-raid-part-of-multistate-human-5188938.php?cmpid=hpfc .

Defrocked priest from Philadelphia called a ‘brutal abuser’ has been living in Dallas gayborhood

James Brzyski, a defrocked priest from Philadelphia who’s almost always described as “one of the Archdiocese’s most brutal abusers,” has been hiding in plain sight in Dallas while pretending to be “a jovial former Xerox employee who’d lost millions after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.” And a support group for men and women abused by priest is calling on the Catholic Diocese of Dallas to do something about it.

The Philadelphia Daily News found the 62-year-old at the Crescent View Apartments near Cedar Springs and the Dallas North Tollway. Residents who once welcomed him warmly quickly discovered there was something wrong with their new neighbor, who played with visiting young boys in the complex’s pool and “bragged about going online to find males who appeared to be underage.” They soon discovered his past as a man accused of sexually assaulting as many as 100 boys, according to a grand jury report, during his years in Philadelphia during the 1970s and ’80s.

Brzyski, who left the church in 1985 but wasn’t kicked out of the priesthood for another two decades, said nothing about his past until he was confronted about it. Because he didn’t have to.

“Brzyski is able to move from one community to another in relative anonymity — at least until his behavior gives him away — because the Archdiocese won’t disclose his whereabouts, or the whereabouts of 23 other Philadelphia priests who have been defrocked for abusing minors,” writes William Bender. A public records search shows Brzyski doesn’t appear to have a Texas driver’s license, and that since leaving Philadelphia he’s lived in Virginia; the West Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles; and Kenosha, Wisconsin. And he doesn’t have to register as a sex offender, Bender notes, because “the Archdiocese kept his case under wraps in the 1980s, when allegations that he was sexually abusing children were first reported to church leaders.”

More at http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2014/01/report-defrocked-priest-from-philadelphia-called-a-brutal-abuser-has-been-living-in-dallas.html/ .

Federal suit: Baylor failed to stop cocaine-using surgeon from harming patients

A federal lawsuit is accusing Baylor Health Care System of failing to properly monitor or investigate a Plano neurosurgeon – recently barred from practicing in Texas – despite repeated warnings about his “drug problem” and “lack of competence.”

Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano didn’t seek Dr. Christopher Duntsch’s resignation amid months of botched spinal treatments until one of his patients died in March 2012, according to the suit.

Then the hospital gave him a “letter of reference” that allowed him to go on to harm patients at other Dallas facilities, it says.

The malpractice case was brought by Kenneth Fennell of Denton County. He claims Duntsch harmed him and several other patients over a nine-month stretch beginning in July 2011. Among the worst outcomes alleged: a woman who bled to death, and Duntsch’s “lifelong friend and roommate” who was rendered a quadriplegic. Duntsch performed an “unnecessary surgery” on Fennell, 68, operating on the wrong body part, the suit says.

More at http://watchdogblog.dallasnews.com/2014/01/federal-suit-baylor-failed-to-stop-cocaine-using-surgeon-from-harming-patients-at-dallas-hospitals.html/ .

Kitteh sez, "pawk at ur own purril"

'Jesus Tattoo' group claims Lubbock ISD violated free speech rights, lawsuit shows