The move comes as hospitals throughout the country are seeing spikes in patients with Covid-19, in today's bite-sized hospital and health industry news from the District of Columbia, Florida, and New York.

• District of Columbia: HHS on Friday announced it is dispersing a total of $3 billion in Covid-19 relief funds to 215 safety net hospitals and a total $1 billion in relief funds to certain rural providers, urban hospitals with rural Medicare designations, and hospitals in small metropolitan areas. HHS is allocating the funding from a $175 billion relief fund Congress established earlier this year. The announcement comes as hospitals throughout the country are seeing spikes in patients with Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus (King, FierceHealthcare, 7/10; Morse, Healthcare Finance News, 7/10; Cohrs, Modern Healthcare, 7/10).

• Florida: Cleveland Clinic has opened a research center in Florida that will allow the system to expand on research that's currently performed at the health system's five hospitals in Florida and the Lerner Research Institute in Cleveland. The Florida Research and Innovation Center will focus on immune-oncology and infectious disease research (Coutré, Modern Healthcare, 7/9).

• New York: Two people on Wednesday sued Teladoc Health for allegedly making repeated telemarketing calls selling memberships to Teladoc and health insurance. The lawsuit claims that the robocalls violate the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which requires that telemarketers get consumers' consent before contacting them with automated calls. A spokesperson for Teladoc said the organization cannot comment on active or pending litigation, Modern Healthcare reports (Kim Cohen, Modern Healthcare, 7/9).