The FBI is investigating scams by fake rehab groups that target the Indigenous community, offering substance-abuse recovery or mental-health services at pop-up facilities to rake in government money, FBI officials say.

Republican Senate leaders said on Tuesday that the Legislature is working with Gov. Katie Hobbs to pass the state’s budget in the next two weeks, citing an April deadline connected to federally allocated Medicaid funding, but the governor’s staff say it’s a play to create “false urgency.” 

Indigenous communities are calling on the Arizona Legislature to tighten regulations on drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers with reports of scammers who target and traffic Indigenous people becoming more common. 

Mental and behavioral health conditions are also a leading cause of maternal mortality in the U.S. In Arizona, nearly half of all pregnancy-associated deaths are due to mental health or substance use issues, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services. Dr. Saira Kalia, a perinatal psychiatrist at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, and Dr. Kathryn Emerick, also a perinatal psychiatrist at the University of Arizona, are working to launch a statewide hotline next spring for providers who serve the perinatal population.

Doulas in Arizona and around the country don’t deliver babies, but these nonmedical labor assistants can make a difference in maternal health outcomes. Of 30 states where the maternal mortality rate is known, Arizona ranked ninth for these deaths from 2018 to 2020, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

In central Phoenix, Hushabye Nursery is home to babies born withdrawing from addictive substances they were exposed to in the womb. Across the country, cases of neonatal abstinence syndrome increased a startling 82% from 2010 to 2017, research shows. In Arizona, these cases increased 41% from 2017 to 2021.

Arizona hospitals overall saw huge increases in their profits last year despite -- or more likely, because of -- Covid.

The House voted along party lines Thursday to defeat a Democratic attempt to expand KidsCare eligibility by amending a bill funding the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System.

  Former Maricopa County Assessor Paul Petersen, who was accused of paying women from the Marshall Islands to deliver their babies in the U.S. and of organizing the children’s adoption to American families, today pleaded guilty to four fraudulent charges. ...

Hospitals that accept payment from the state's Medicaid program can't then try to collect more by going after money owed to the patient, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled Monday.