• Louisiana/New York: Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill (R) has signed an extradition form for Margaret Carpenter, a doctor from New York, for allegedly sending abortion medication to a patient in Louisiana. "We will take any and all legal actions to enforce the criminal laws of this State!" Murrill said. Last year, Louisiana passed a law reclassifying two drugs used in medication abortion, mifepristone and misoprostol, as Schedule IV controlled substances. According to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), she will not comply with the extradition request. "Doctors take an oath to protect their patients," Hochul said. "I took an oath to protect all New Yorkers." New York has passed a "shield" law to protect doctors who prescribe abortion medications to patients living in states where abortion is prohibited. Under the law, state or local government workers cannot cooperate with out-of-state authorities about any healthcare practice that is legal in New York. (O'Connell-Domenech, The Hill, 2/13; Vinall, Washington Post, 2/14)
• Maryland: U.S. District Judge Brendan Hurson has granted a temporary restraining order against two executive orders issued by President Donald Trump that targeted transgender individuals and gender-affirming care. The first executive order states that "federal funds shall not be used to promote gender ideology," while the second directed agencies to ensure that organizations receiving federal funds don't provide gender-affirming care to individuals under age 19. Following the second executive order, several hospital systems across the country suspended their gender-affirming care services, leading to several lawsuits. "This is a population with an extremely higher rate for suicide, poverty, unemployment, drug addiction," Hurson said, adding that abruptly stopping gender-affirming care for these patients would be "horribly dangerous for anyone, for any care, but particularly for this extremely vulnerable population." After Hurson's decision, a separate federal judge, U.S. District Court Judge Lauren King, also granted a temporary order following a lawsuit from attorneys general from Washington state, Oregon, and Minnesota. (Schonfeld, The Hill, 2/13; Portnoy/Rizzo, Washington Post, 2/13; Associated Press/NPR, 2/15)
• Minnesota: Last year, Allina Health transferred around 2,000 IT and revenue cycle employees to Optum to improve artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and the patient digital experience. According to Allina CFO Doug Watson, the transition is going "remarkably well," and the transfer was extremely supportive after Allina was affected by the global CrowdStrike outage in July 2024. "[To] have a partner that could help us rapidly respond to getting out to individual desktops and making sure we were getting things corrected and remediated so that they could continue to do their work, it was really remarkable to see the two teams working hand in hand with each other and not thinking about anything other than, 'how do we solve the problem,’" Watson said. When it comes to the revenue cycle, Watson said the team has provided Allina with valuable guidance on new regulations and upcoming changes. The Optum team has also helped Allina scale and meet performance targets that were set before the transition. (Ashley, Becker's Hospital CFO Report, 2/7)

*Advisory Board is a subsidiary of Optum. All Advisory Board research, expert perspectives, and recommendations remain independent.  

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