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In most Tennessean counties, residents currently eligible to get the coronavirus vaccine are health care workers, long-term care residents and people 75 and older. But don't expect strict enforcement.
More than 93,000 COVID patients are hospitalized across the country. But beds and space aren't the main concern for hospital administrators — It's the health care workforce.
The CARES Act provides funding that pays the bills for uninsured COVID-19 patients. But the death of a young man in Nashville shows some patients don't know about the program until it’s too late.
Health experts agree masks are the cheapest, best weapon against the coronavirus pandemic. But how should mask-wearing be enforced? Mandates? Fines? Polite requests? It’s hard to figure out what works as President Donald Trump's behavior keeps the debate alive over whether they should be worn at all.
The National Institutes of Health has suggested minorities should be overrepresented in COVID-19 vaccine trials — perhaps at rates that are double their percentage of the U.S. population. But efforts to recruit patients from racial minority groups are just beginning, while some trials have already advanced to phase 3.
Epidemiologists are having a hard time predicting whether Labor Day will be like the Fourth of July and Memorial Day, when celebrations fanned the flames in coronavirus hot spots around the South and West.
Nationwide, coronavirus infection numbers are trending down, but several states are seeing upticks, with the heaviest impact falling on communities of color and nursing home residents.
Some large employers interpreted themselves as exempt from new federal laws that say tests for the coronavirus should be free to patients. Large academic medical centers are holding back from sending bills to these patients to avoid a backlash over surprise billing.
Just about anyone who wants a coronavirus test in the state of Tennessee can get one. How? The state got buy-in and lots of participation from private labs by assuring them it will pay them.
Though it already had one staff member testing positive for the coronavirus, the Gallatin Center for Rehabilitation and Healing did not tell 911 operators this fact as it called ambulances to take residents in respiratory distress to the hospital, a WPLN investigation reveals.
Many health officials around the nation have not released data on the ethnic and racial demographics of people tested for the new coronavirus. But public health experts said the anecdotes are adding up, and they fear the response to the pandemic will result in predictable health care disparities.
There is currently no central coordination of the supply of protective garb and masks in U.S. hospital inventories. A CDC project wants hospitals to share that information for the good of all.
Until very recently, the separate company that runs the emergency department at Nashville General Hospital in Tennessee was continuing to haul patients who couldn't pay medical bills into court.
Fewer Americans are dying in a hospital, under the close supervision of doctors and nurses. That trend has been boosted by an expanded Medicare benefit that helps people live out their final days at home in hospice care. But as home hospice grows, so has the burden on families left to provide much of the care.
U-Haul will not hire nicotine users in 21 states where it is legal to do so. Ethicists say such policies disproportionately affect the poor and are a sign of employers becoming overly involved in workers' lifestyle choices.
The opioid epidemic is intergenerational, with tens of thousands of babies born every year dependent on opioids. Advocates worry that settlement dollars resulting from lawsuits against the drug industry might not benefit these children.
It's hard to manage chronic conditions without a steady source of healthy food. That's why more health care providers are setting up food pantries — right inside hospitals and clinics.
Faced with lawsuits from sick smokers, tobacco firms argue the health risks were "common knowledge" for decades, and they often pay professors to help make that point as expert witnesses.
A few hundred hospitals have banded together to sue drugmakers in state courts, but far more are staying on the sidelines to avoid 'unflattering attention' about their role in the opioid crisis.
At a camp for kids in Nashville, physical therapists use “constraint-induced movement therapy.” It makes life tougher, temporarily, in hopes of strengthening the campers’ ability to navigate the world.
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