Lawmakers get update on drug abuse coverage
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — New Hampshire’s Insurance Department has completed its initial review of whether insurance companies are appropriately covering substance abuse treatment.
The president’s health care overhaul law requires insurance companies to provide equal coverage for addiction treatment as they do for physical health, but some providers and advocates say companies are denying coverage for routine treatment.
Those complaints prompted the insurance department to launch an examination in November. Today, officials are sharing their preliminary findings with lawmakers.
The probe comes as New Hampshire seeks to expand treatment and recovery services amid a growing heroin and opioid crisis. The state recorded 414 fatal overdoses last year, up from 326 in 2014 and 192 the year before.
Student attacked by armed men in dorm
AMHERST, Mass. (AP) — A University of Massachusetts Amherst student received a cut on the head when “one or two hostile armed persons” attacked him in a dormitory building before fleeing.
The reports of armed men on campus late Thursday prompted a nearly two-hour shelter-in-place order.
UMass Police Chief Tyrone Parham says the men, who were not believed to be students, entered Pierpont Hall at about 5:15 p.m. Thursday and hit the victim on the head.
Parham said the victim may have been hit with a gun, but there were “absolutely no shots fired.”
The student was treated at a hospital. His name was not released.
Parham says the attack was not random.
The assailants remain on the loose.
Family charged in crime ring faces fall trial
PITTSFIELD, Mass. (AP) — A Berkshire County couple and their two adult sons charged in connection with what authorities call a statewide burglary ring are scheduled to go on trial in September.
The Berkshire Eagle reports that James and Nancy Tarjick and their sons, Aaron Tarjick and James Tarjick Jr., are facing at least a combined 116 charges stemming from burglaries between 2010 and 2015. Authorities have said the sons may be responsible for more than 100 burglaries.
Most of the charges are against the sons. Aaron Tarjick has pleaded not guilty to charges of larceny, felony nighttime breaking and entering into a boat or vehicle and other offenses.
James Tarjick pleaded not guilty to similar counts.
Their parents, in their 60s, have denied charges they stored stolen items in their Windsor home.
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