One Jacksonville employer has already made a switch in health insurance providers amid an ongoing battle with Springfield Clinic and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois.

Beginning on Wednesday, services from Springfield Clinic’s doctors, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and other professionals will be considered out-of-network for patients insured through Blue Cross and Blue Shield preferred-provider plans.

It doesn’t appear that the dispute over what’s been characterized as “market-competitive rates and fair business terms” for patients in rural communities will be resolved between the two entities will be resolved any time soon. Springfield Clinic, in written communications with patients, has criticized the “record profits” earned by Blue Cross’ parent company during the COVID-19 pandemic while failing to provide information on its own revenues. Blue Cross has responded in kind, noting that health care costs in Springfield are 16% more expensive than the City of Chicago. Calling Springfield Clinic’s “artificial, above-market reimbursement rates in the middle of a global pandemic” an intentional mark up in health care costs and “not sustainable” for its members.

Jacksonville School District 117 is one of the entities that has gotten out ahead of the problem. Superintendent Steve Ptacek says that the district’s employees voted ahead of their insurance contract that ended on October 1^st and decided to go with a different carrier: “This is not about cost savings at all. This is about ensuring that our staff is going to be able to maintain the services of Springfield Clinic as in-network. My Human Resources Director Tammy Stice was really on top of this early and let us know that there was a very strong possibility we were going to lose Springfield Clinic as our in-network provider. We immediately went out and got bids from all competitive companies. We got four bids – one was obviously our new provider United Healthcare and one was Blue Cross-Blue Shield, and there were two others. All four bids were cheaper than last year. It turns out that during the Covid year, we didn’t spend as much as we had in the past, so all of the bids would have been a savings to the taxpayers. Each of the bids were very close to each other. What it came down to was services, so we had meetings in early August with our staff to go over all the different options. Then, we allowed our staff the opportunity to vote and that made the determination which company we were going to go with.”

Ptacek says the transition to United Healthcare has been smooth and he believes employees of the district have been appreciative of the fact that Springfield Clinic will remain an in-network provider for the near future.

According to the State Journal Register, Athens School District made a similar jump ahead of their own October 1^st deadline. Memorial Health and SIU School of Medicine have reported that both have had thousands of requests for switch in primary care and specialists over the last 60 days while the disagreement continues between the two entities.

Springfield Clinic estimated more than 100,000 people, or about 20% of the clinic’s patients, could be affected by the ongoing dispute.

The Food and Drug Administration has issued a voluntary recall on some at-home COVID-19 tests.

The FDA has issued a recall on 2.2 million Ellume COVID-19 tests. Ellume received $232 million in federal funding earlier this year to help make the tests. The recall has been issued due to higher-than-acceptable false positive test results for COVID-19, according to the FDA notice.

The tests were manufactured between February 24^th and August 11^th and have been sold between April 13^th and August 26^th all throughout the United States.

The FDA had issued an Emergency Use Authorization on December 15^th of last year for use of the test, and re-upped the authorization on February 11^th. The recall is an expansion of a recall issued in early October for 200,000 test kits of the same issue. According to the recall notice, approximately 35 false positives have been reported due to the test.

A list of the affected lot numbers of the test can be found on the FDA’s recall notice on its website. The FDA says that a letter has been sent to all impacted customers on October 1^st to stop the sale and report any issues. For individuals who may have received a positive test from the affected lot numbers, the FDA says those individuals should to contact their health care provider, urgent care facility, or other COVID-19 testing site and request a COVID-19 molecular diagnostic test to confirm the positive test result.

The FDA says that no deaths have occurred due to the tests. However, they caution that some issues that could result from the recalled product could be getting unnecessary treatment and a potential delayed diagnosis for actual illness. More information can be found by emailing productsupport@ellume.com or by calling 1-888-807-1501.

The Greene County Board may be pursuing an arbitrator in the near future to help with local union negotiations.

The Greene Prairie Press reports that a special county personnel meeting was called on Monday afternoon to discuss courthouse and highway department personnel who have been working without a contract since January. A proposed contract was accepted by the local Steelworkers Union earlier this Fall but the Greene County Board has voted down the contract twice.

In a phone conversation with WLDS News, Board Chairman Mark Strang says he discussed bringing in an arbitrator from an outside firm to clear up communication issues and negotiations. Strang told WLDS he didn’t have an idea of costs and didn’t pursue the matter much further than having a discussion with Greene County State’s Attorney Caleb Briscoe.

Strang says discussions about costs and whether or not the firm Briscoe has suggested will be covered in executive, closed session.

Hiring the firm appears to be a point of contention with the board, along with the contract negotiations. Board members Andrea Schnelten and Chris Elliott asked during the meeting on Monday according to the Greene Prairie Press on why Strang or the other board members would want to hire an outside firm and pay them for something that both Schnelten and Elliott had negotiated with the union members.

The sticking point in the contract appears to be a 40-hour work week clause that would allegedly cost the county more money in salary.

Strang declined to comment further to WLDS about the nature of the negotiations of the contract or about bringing in the outside arbitrator.

Plaintiffs in three lawsuits challenging the new legislative district maps that Democrats pushed through the General Assembly earlier this year have submitted their proposed changes, which would create more Latino- and Black-majority districts in Cook County and the Metro East region.

Central Illinois’ legislative districts will be left untouched.

According to Capitol News Illinois, the filings were submitted to a 3-judge federal court panel on Wednesday. The proposed changes will be the subject of a combined hearing that is tentatively set for the week of December 6th, although exact dates have not yet been announced.

The plaintiffs in the case include Republican leaders from the House and Senate of the Illinois General Assembly along with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and the East St. Louis chapter of the NAACP.

All three of the suits name House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, Senate President Don Harmon and the Illinois State Board of Elections, along with its individual members, as defendants. They seek an order to block ISBE from implementing the maps that Gov. JB Pritzker signed into law on September 24th and to adopt the new maps that they have submitted to the court.

With the proposals largely staying the same, Republican districts that have been split up and changed by the maps passed in September will still stay the same.

The Illinois State Police are investigating an early morning shooting from yesterday that resulted in a rural Roodhouse man’s death.

According to a press release from the Greene County Sheriff’s Office, at approximately 2:11AM Saturday, Greene County Sheriff’s Deputies were dispatched on a 9-1-1 call to a shooting incident that had just occurred at a rural Roodhouse residence approximately 5 miles northeast of White Hall. Also dispatched to the scene were members of the Roodhouse and White Hall Police Departments.

Upon arrival, deputies found an unidentified 44-year old male deceased in the home who had suffered a fatal gunshot wound. The Greene County Coroner’s Office was summoned to the scene a short time later to perform a death investigation and pronounced the subject deceased.

After an initial assessment of the scene, the Greene County Sheriff’s Office contacted the Illinois State Police Division of Criminal Investigation Zone 6 to assume the investigation into the circumstances of the shooting. In email communication this morning with WLDS, ISP says the investigation is active and ongoing and no further information is available at this time. ISP is being assisted by the Greene County Sheriff’s Office.

Five people were arrested in a Springfield drug bust on Tuesday.

WAND-TV reports that Springfield Police were conducting joint narcotics and firearms investigation on Tuesday, November 9th in the 3300 block of East Enos Avenue. Authorities were involved in surveillance when two people left in a vehicle.

When police tried to stop that vehicle, they said the driver hit a wooden deck and police vehicle while trying to flee. Both the driver and passenger were arrested. At the residence, police arrested three additional people when the search warrant was served.

Police said they recovered suspected methamphetamine, heroin, crack cocaine, cannabis and two firearms. The following arrests were made:

26 year old Rhett Birdsell of Chandlerville was cited for aggravated assault, aggravated fleeing and eluding police, criminal damage to state supported property, and driving while license suspended.

23 year old Cedric Pates of Peoria was cited for armed violence, methamphetamine delivery, methamphetamine possession, and possession of a firearm without a FOID card.

22 year old Izaac Gore of Springfield was cited for armed violence, methamphetamine delivery, methamphetamine possession, and possession of a firearm without a FOID card.

19 year old Valarie Gore of Springfield was cited for possession of a controlled substance and an outstanding Cass County warrant for DUI.

21 year old Dylan Carpentier of Riverton was cited for an outstanding warrant for driving while license suspended.

Birdsell, Izaac Gore, and Pates remain held at the Sangamon County Jail. Valarie Gore and Carpentier were cited and released.

Anyone with information about this case should call Springfield Police at (217)788-8311 and/or the Sangamon/Menard County Crime Stoppers at (217)788-8427.

The Cass County State’s Attorney’s Office has charged a Springfield man on several counts of burglary and theft stemming from events last year

26 year old James M. Gilliam of Springfield was charged in a 9 count information on Tuesday. Gilliam has been charged with five counts of burglary at addresses and vehicles in Ashland, along with two counts of felony theft, and two counts of misdemeanor theft.

Gilliam was initially arrested with 20 year old Damon W. Lomprez in October of last year in reference to the multiple burglaries in the Village of Ashland on or about October 6^th, 2020. The Cass County Sheriff’s Office was assisted by Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office and the Ashland Police Department in an investigation of the alleged burglaries and thefts.

Gilliam’s alleged accomplice, Lomprez, pled guilty to two counts of burglary back in January and was sentenced to 36 months of Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities probation concurrent with a separate felony case in Sangamon County, plus fees and court costs. Lomprez was also ordered to pay over $11,000 in restitution to the victims in the case. The seven remaining charges in Lomprez’s case were dismissed per the plea agreement.

Gilliam is due in Cass County Court on the 9 counts for a first appearance on November 22^nd.

Fugitives wanted for carjacking and attempted sexual assault led U.S. Marshals to find a dead body of a Northern Macoupin man stuffed in a car in an alley in Springfield yesterday.

The Adams County Sheriff’s Office confirmed yesterday that officers were working with the Illinois State Police, Springfield Police, and the U.S. Marshals on a homicide investigation, after marshals spotted a suspicious car in an alley while executing an arrest on two known fugitives out of Quincy.

34 year old Bradley S. Yohn of Springfield and 32 year old Karen D. Blackledge of Quincy were taken into custody about 2 p.m. Wednesday at 1906 Cornell in Springfield. Springfield Police issued a press release Wednesday night saying that about the same time, U.S. Marshals made an arrest in an alley in the 1900 block of Cornell. “While conducting that investigation, they observed a suspicious vehicle in the alley south of Cornell Avenue,” the statement read. “Further inspection of the vehicle revealed a deceased subject inside.”

Sangamon County Coroner Jim Allmon identified the victim today as 30 year old Derek J. Banker Barnett of Virden as the victim of a gunshot wound in the vehicle found near South Wirt Avenue.

Yohn and Blackledge each face two counts of home invasion, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated vehicular hijacking, residential burglary and aggravated criminal sexual assault. In addition, Yohn was charged with an additional vehicular hijacking that occurred in Adams County last week. They are currently being lodged at the Sangamon County Jail in Springfield on Adams County warrants.

According to Quincy’s WGEM, Adams County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Jake McMahon says that two vehicles that were stolen in the case have been recovered. A blue-green pickup truck was found Thursday on North Bottom Road in Quincy, and a white sedan belonging to the woman police believe who allegedly was assaulted was found in Springfield.

Currently Yohn and Blackledge have not officially been linked to the homicide of Banker-Barnett. This story will be updated when more information becomes available.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and the Illinois consumer group PIRG are warning the public about dangerous toys and children’s products ahead of the holiday shopping season.

Illinois PIRG’s Abe Scarr says this year’s list of problem toys and products highlight counterfeit and knockoff toys, toys with small parts, and toys that are easy to hack with a computer, smartphone, or tablet: “Our researchers purchased a children’s karaoke machine to test the bluetooth connection, and we found that if the singing machine is turned on, anyone can connect to it without a PIN code or other verification. We also tested how far a person could be from the singing machine and still connect to it via Bluetooth. Our researcher actually went outside her home more than 30 feet away and was still able to connect.”

Raoul says outside large toys like bikes that commonly cause potential serious injury are also on the do not buy list this year: “Bicycles with faulty brakes or parts that can become dislodged and cause a rider to fall and potentially be injured, Hoverboards that can overheat or explode, and youth all-terrain vehicles that do not meet safety requirements and speed restrictions [are all on the list].”

For more information on a safe shopping guide, download the annual Safe Shopping Guide on the Illinois Attorney General’s website here or read PIRG’s annual report “Trouble In Toyland” here for more information.