HJNO Jul/Aug 2025

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS I  JUL / AUG 2025 59 For weekly eNews updates and to read the journal online, visit HealthcareJournalNO.com effort in 2023. I think two things have changed. Uh, I mean there's violence in the streets over these issues. This is not something that is a pas- sively accepted reality anymore. Americans are upset about it... "Secretary Kennedy made it very clear from the outset that we're going to deal with this issue one way or the other. We have legislation pend- ing that would codify some of these changes. But I think the major factor is the industry real- izes that some of the things that are pre-autho- rized just don't make any sense. And they now believe that because we could actually create an interoperable digital system, a connectivity with very agreed-on standards — this actually could become a real-time process, which takes a lot of money out of the system... "They estimated earlier today that it costs between $35 and $45 per documentation of pre-authorization for the doctor's office. It costs the same amount for the insurance company for every single time. And there were 3.2 million doc- uments last year for just Medicare Advantage. So multiply the numbers and you begin to real- ize we're throwing money away on administrative costs. Just financially.” That’s somewhere between $224 million and $288 million, if our math is right. Oz went on to say, “We're also wasting peo- ple’s time. And we have the technology today to actually address this in a meaningful fashion. But the most important reality is the administra- tion has made it clear: we’re not going to toler- ate it anymore. So either you fix it, or we’re going to fix it. And I think they wisely have decided they should fix it.” LDH Launches Project M.O.M. with NewDirector The Louisiana Department of Health is officially launching Project M.O.M. (Maternal Overdose Mortality) with the announcement of the proj- ect’s director, website, and patient journey map designed to introduce participating hospitals, providers, and other stakeholders to this initia- tive. Project M.O.M. aims to reverse the current crisis of accidental opioid overdose as the primary cause of maternal mortality in Louisiana. “Accidental opioid overdose has been the leading cause of pregnancy-associated death in Louisiana since 2018, and this is a statewide effort to reverse that terrible trend,” said Deputy Sec- retary Pete Croughan, MD. Project M.O.M. aims to reduce pregnancy-asso- ciated opioid overdose deaths by 80% within the next three years, while protecting infants from loss or foster care placement. Carrie Templeton, who joined LDH in Octo- ber, will lead the program. She previously held executive roles at Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center, Lafayette General Surgical Hos- pital, Iberia Medical Center, and Lafayette Gen- eral Health. Tulane Names Shalini KulasingamFounding Director of NewCancer Prevention Center The Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Tulane University has appointed Shalini Kulasingam, PhD, MPH, as the founding director of the school’s newly estab- lished Center for Cancer Prevention and Control, effective July 1. In a dual role, Kulasingam will also serve as associate director of population science at the Tulane Cancer Center, and her leadership will also extend to the Louisiana Cancer Research Center (LCRC), where she will serve in the same capacity with the same title. She will collaborate with can- cer population health researchers across LCRC’s partner institutions: Tulane University, LSU Health New Orleans, Xavier University of Louisiana, and Ochsner Health. Previously at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health, Kulasingam served as a member of the Masonic Cancer Center’s Screen- ing, Prevention, Etiology, and Cancer Survivorship (SPECS) Program. Her research primarily focuses on the prevention and control of cervical cancer, with a particular emphasis on human papilloma- virus (HPV) vaccination and screening strategies. South Central Louisiana Human Services Authority Celebrates Grand Opening of NewHouma Location South Central Louisiana Human Services Authority (SCLHSA) has announced the grand opening of its newly relocated offices for Developmental Disabilities Services and the Terrebonne Behavioral Health Center, now at 803 and 805 Barrow St., respectively. NewOrleans Mental Health Campaign Dramatically Cuts Treatment Delays for Psychosis A targeted mental health awareness campaign significantly reduced the time it takes for individ- uals experiencing psychosis to seek and receive treatment in New Orleans, according to a Tulane University study. The research, published in the journal Psychiat- ric Services , evaluated the impact of a campaign that educated the public about early signs of psy- chosis and encouraged people to seek profes- sional help sooner. Psychosis refers to a collection of symptoms affecting the mind in which people have trouble distinguishing between what is real and what is not. The campaign, called Clear Answers to Lou- isiana Mental Health (CALM), cut the median wait time between the onset of symptoms and patients receiving treatment from 6.6 months to just 2.1 months at a specialized early interven- tion clinic. Louisiana ranks last among U.S. states in fund- ing for community mental health services. Presidential Executive Order: Delivering Most- Favored-Nation Drug Pricing to American Patients Editor’s Note: Please don’t skip over what is bur- ied in this story about this exciting Presidential Executive Order hopefully lowering drug pricing in the U.S. – it warrants national attention, and yet, almost no one is talking about it. According to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the pres- ident of the U.S. was given a “hundred million dollars from the pharmaceutical industry,” the secretary of Health and Human Services said, “there's at least one pharmaceutical lobbyist for every congressman, every senator in Capitol Hill and every member of the Supreme Court; some estimates, three pharmaceutical companies, the industry itself spends three times what the next largest lobbyist spends on lobbying.” Pharmaceutical companies have done some extraordinary good. They've developed treat- ments that save lives and alleviate suffering. But