Trending News Today: Thousands Mistakenly Enrolled During California Medicaid Expansion

Cigna announced that it has reduced opioid use among its customers by 25%, according to The Hill. Two years ago, the health insurer began capping prescriptions for short-acting opioids for acute pain to 15 days, and will soon limit this further to 7 days, according to the article. In May 2016, Cigna initiated efforts to reduce opioid use by identifying measures it could implement, including notifying physicians when it appeared a patient might be misusing or overusing opioids and convening more than 2000 medical groups to reduce opioid prescribing, The Hill noted.

Several anti-smoking groups have filed a lawsuit in federal court against the FDA for its decision to delay the review of e-cigarettes, according to the Associated Press. According to the article, the lawsuit argues that the FDA failed to follow proper requirements last year when it opted to push back the deadline for e-cigarette makers to submit their products for review, which the groups say poses a threat to children’s health.

An estimated 450,000 individuals who may not have been eligible for Medicaid coverage were mistakenly enrolled during Medicaid expansion in California, according to Kaiser Health News. In a report released by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the HHS inspector general estimated that California spent $738.2 million on 366,078 expansion beneficiaries who were ineligible. Auditors said that it spent an additional $416.5 million for 79,055 expansion enrollees who were “potentially” ineligible, according to the article.