• California: Alignment Health and Instacart on Tuesday announced they will jointly market Medicare Advantage policies next year that will be available in 13 counties in California and Nevada and will include additional benefits like a quarterly stipend worth up to $100 that can be used for purchases from Instacart and Instacart+ memberships. Dawn Maroney, CEO of Alignment Health Plan and president of markets at Alignment Health, said the company expects around 30,000 Medicare beneficiaries to enroll in the new plans. (Tepper, Modern Healthcare, 10/3)
• Georgia: CDC on Monday published a new proposal saying healthcare providers should offer gay and bisexual MSM, as well as transgender women, doxycycline, a common antibiotic that can be taken following unprotected sex, to reduce the person's risk of acquiring chlamydia, gonorrhea, or syphilis. Studies have shown that taking a single, 200-milligram dose of doxycycline no later than 72 hours after unprotected sex can reduce a person's chance of acquiring chlamydia and syphilis by almost 80% and gonorrhea by around 50%. (Branswell, STAT, 10/2)
• Illinois: Walgreens on Monday announced that its CIO, Hsiao Wang, has left the company effective immediately. Wang joined Walgreens roughly a year ago following a stint as CIO at Michaels Cos. He also previously served as chief technology officer at Sam's Club. Wang is the third executive to leave Walgreens in less than two months following former CEO Rosalind Brewer's departure in late August and former CFO James Kehoe's departure in the same month. Neal Sample, a consultant and former CIO at Northwestern Mutual, will temporarily lead Walgreens' technology initiatives following Wang's departure, a spokesperson said. (Hudson, Modern Healthcare, 10/2)

We spoke with Shannon Whittington, the Program Director of the Gender Affirmation Program, to learn more about how Visiting Nurse Service of New York (VNSNY) has partnered with Mount Sinai (and other NYC hospitals) to build out their service offerings for LGBT patients, particularly caring for transgender patients post gender affirmation surgery.