What: The Associated Press investigates the office tasked with holding accountable hospitals that refuse or fail to treat pregnant women who need care. They found that “just a dozen hospitals have been fined for refusing to treat patients — pregnant or not — over the past two years, an Associated Press analysis of civil monetary penalties issued by the U.S. Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General found. It took years for the government to decide those penalties.”

Why it matters: “After a complaint against a hospital is filed, a state surveyor investigates the hospital. A physician and the federal government review the findings to determine whether or not a patient received inadequate treatment. If an emergency room violated the federal law, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services may refer the case to the HHS inspector general to consider penalties. Those investigations are ‘slow, insufficiently staffed, with a lot of pushback tolerated from hospitals,’ Rosenbaum, an expert on the law, said.”

Source: Associated Press