California physician practice to pay $6.73M for unnecessary procedures; disrupted sleep cycles linked to dementia risk; HHS launches Moms.gov – Morning Medical Update

California physician practice to pay $6.73M over medically unnecessary procedures

Feliciano Serrano, M.D., allegedly told patients their legs would need amputation to coerce them into procedures they did not need.

A California vascular practice and physician have agreed to pay more than $6.73 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations that they performed medically unnecessary procedures on Medicare patients over nearly a decade. Federal prosecutors alleged that Feliciano Serrano, M.D., of Huntington Park's Serrano Kidney & Vascular Access Center routinely scheduled dialysis access interventions and peripheral artery disease procedures — including angioplasty, stenting and atherectomy — on patients who did not meet clinical criteria, falsified medical records to justify the procedures and repeated them every few days, weeks or months despite no clinical benefit.

One patient received approximately 42 stents in a dialysis segment between 2016 and 2023, including during a period when Serrano told the patient he did not need dialysis. Another received approximately 16 atherectomies in his legs between 2019 and 2023. Prosecutors also alleged Serrano told patients their legs would require amputation if they declined procedures, when little or no such risk existed. The settlement was triggered by a whistleblower lawsuit filed by Lincoln Analytics Inc., which will receive approximately $976,000 from the recovery. The claims resolved are allegations only and no determination of liability has been made.

Disrupted sleep cycles may trigger brain inflammation linked to dementia

Texas A&M scientists are testing whether a stem cell-derived therapy can prevent or reverse the microglial changes associated with Alzheimer's risk.

Researchers at Texas A&M Health have found that disrupted circadian rhythms, the kind common in shift workers, may accelerate dementia risk by triggering abnormal changes in microglia, the immune cells responsible for clearing debris and regulating inflammation in the brain. When sleep-wake cycles become chronically out of sync, microglia shift into a stress-primed state, potentially allowing amyloid plaques and other damaging material to accumulate over time.

The finding builds on earlier published work and is now the subject of a new $1.325 million seedling grant from Texas A&M's Dementia & Alzheimer's Research Initiative. Funded researcher Karienn Souza is testing whether an extracellular vesicle therapy, which uses nano-sized particles derived from stem cells to send anti-inflammatory signals to microglia, can prevent or reverse those changes in an animal model. "Only 3% of Alzheimer's risk is genetic, and the rest is environmental," Souza said. Alzheimer's disease and other dementias currently affect approximately 55 million people worldwide, a number expected to nearly triple by 2050.

HHS launches Moms.gov, a federal resource for new and expecting mothers

The site, which went live on Mother's Day, includes guidance on pregnancy, nutrition, breastfeeding, mental health and available federal programs.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) launched Moms.gov on Mother's Day, a new federal website aimed at providing health information and resources to new and expecting mothers. The site covers prenatal and postpartum topics including nutrition, breastfeeding, mental health, preconception health and adoption, and also directs users to pregnancy centers, federally qualified health centers and federal programs including Trump Accounts and TrumpRx.

"Moms.gov delivers critical tools and support to help parents foster healthy pregnancies, strengthen young families and create brighter futures for their children. This is how you Make America Healthy Again,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.