After six years or so covering retail and other consumer-related business topics for newspapers in Florida, I’m taking on a new beat.
I was named the health and medicine reporter at the Tampa Bay Times at the end of September. (There was some overlap of beats during and after Hurricane Irma.)
Got a story idea or tip? Please email me: jgriffin@tampabay.com
By Justine Griffin
![Christopher Wittmann, a physician assistant, examines a patient for lower back pain at Trinity Pain Center in Pasco County. Outpatient health care visits like this are covered under Medicare Part B, which will see premium increases of more than 5 percent on average in 2018. Medicare open enrollment begins Sunday and runs through Dec. 7, with a special extension to Dec. 31 for people affected by the recent hurricanes. [Times | 2014]](http://www.tampabay.com/storyimage/HI/20171013/ARTICLE/310139119/AR/0/AR-310139119.jpg?MaxW=950)
More than 2.4 million seniors in Florida rely on Medicare, and a good chunk of them could face rising health care premiums next year.
With Medicare’s annual open enrollment period beginning Sunday, most of the changes to plans and services seem slight for 2018. But experts say Floridians will be among the millions affected nationwide by anticipated rising premiums for Part B plans, which cover outpatient care, doctor bills, physical therapy and more routine health services.
Part B is optional to enroll in and costs most people a monthly premium, which was on average around $134 in 2017, depending on the enrollee’s income. However, participants paid around $109 a month if they chose to have the monthly fee deducted from their Social Security checks. These are the prices that will rise in 2018, analysts say.
And, for many, the hike will eat up most of the 2 percent increase in Social Security payments that the government announced on Friday. Typical recipients will get $27 more in their monthly check in 2018, but experts estimate that Part B premiums paid through Social Security will likely be $20 to $30 more a month.
By Justine Griffin
Tampa Bay Times, Oct. 4, 2017
Allergies out of whack?
You can blame Hurricane Irma for that. Well, kind of.
As many continue to wait for cleanup crews to haul away the sopping piles of withering tree debris in front of their houses from Irma, plenty of people across Tampa Bay are sniffling and coughing more than they were before the hurricane passed, narrowly sparing the region from the worst of its wrath.
“I’ve been telling my patients that it seems like Irma brought the allergy season on a little earlier,” said Dr. Rachel Dawkins, a pediatrician at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg. “We usually see the peak of it in the fall at the end of October and into November, when the trees start shedding their leaves. But right now we have a lot of trees on the ground, which means we have a lot of pollen on the ground, and there’s an uptick of mold from standing water.”
Read more here.
By Justine Griffin
Remember Zika?
The last time Gov. Rick Scott warned Floridians about the potential threat of the mosquito-borne virus was in July, when he urged residents to still be vigilant against bug bites and standing water. At the time, doctors and researchers were bracing for what was supposed to be another active summer season for the virus. Some expected it to be even worse than last year, when 1,100 travel-related cases were reported statewide and Zika spread into pockets of South Florida.
But it’s been quiet on the outbreak front ever since, as Zika cases have dropped dramatically this year.
The state Health Department counts only 180 Zika infections in Florida so far in 2017, on track to come in well below the 1,456 cases reported all of last year. The vast majority are travel-related cases brought to Florida by people who came from somewhere else, like Zika hotbed areas in Central and South America or the Caribbean, already infected with the virus. The rest, about 40, were cases where officials could not determine exactly where the patients contracted the virus or instances where people acquired it locally last year but weren’t tested until 2017.
Officials say they have determined one thing for sure: This year, there are no reported areas in Florida with active, ongoing local transmission of Zika, which means no known instances of mosquitoes carrying the virus.
Another piece of good news is that the number of pregnant women with the virus appears to be declining. With only 101 cases reported so far this year, it would be difficult to match last year’s total of 299 cases.
![First Green Bank, a community bank based in Orlando, is the first in Florida to work with licensed medical marijuana companies. [Photos courtesy of First Green Bank]](http://www.tampabay.com/storyimage/HI/20170831/ARTICLE/308319719/AR/0/AR-308319719.jpg)
By Justine Griffin
Opening a medical marijuana dispensary in Florida naturally comes with a lot of red tape.
Marijuana is still considered an illegal substance at the federal level, despite the 29 states that have legalized it for recreational or medicinal use in recent years. That makes it nearly impossible for banks to fund marijuana distributing companies, which in turn makes it hard for those companies to sign a lease for a store or warehouse or even get insurance.
But one Orlando area community bank is willing to take on the risk.
First Green Bank, a community bank that began in 2009, is working with six out of the seven currently licensed medical marijuana dispensing companies in Florida.
“It all comes down to compliance and transparency, since we’re subject to enhanced money laundering rules,” said James Whitcomb, the chief financial officer of Surterra Holdings Inc., an Atlanta-based medical marijuana company which has grow operations and dispensaries in Florida, including in Tampa. Surterra is a client of First Green Bank. “In order for banks to be compliant with us as customers, they have perform a lot more due diligence. It basically means they have to track every single transaction we make to ensure that no dollar goes to any gang or criminal enterprise,” Whitcomb said.
Because federal law makes it illegal to possess or distribute marijuana — no matter the laws passed in an individual state — it’s considered money laundering, according to the American Bankers Association. It would take an act of Congress to change that. Because of this, most banks in Florida have steered clear of working with the state’s seven licensed growers and distributors of cannabis.
Read more here.