The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.
Carmen Heredia Rodriguez was a reporter for KFF Health News until June 2021.
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The federal government has doled out at least $2.4 billion in state grants since 2017 to address the opioid epidemic, which killed 47,600 people in the U.S. that year alone. But local officials note that drug abuse problems seldom involve only one substance.
The snake struck a 9-year-old hiker at dusk on a nature trail. The outrageous bills struck her parents a few weeks later.
A survey of more than 96,000 students finds that 7.2% reported “clinically significant” symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a study in JAMA Network Open.
Under the rule that took effect this year, Medicare will lower payments for clinic visits performed at hospital-owned facilities to a rate that is equivalent to what it pays an independent doctor. Federal officials expect the move will save the government $380 million this year.
The organ transplant from a living donor opens up the universe of available organs.
The budget would increase funding for efforts like the state-centered initiatives run by the Centers for Disease Control and the Ryan White Program, which offers services and treatment to patients. But it would also dramatically cut funding for global HIV efforts.
Federal officials regulate the handling of vaccines that are provided through the Vaccines for Children program, which offers the medicines generally for children whose families could not afford them. But there is no federal oversight of how these drugs are stored among other health care providers.
The president’s promise to eliminate HIV transmission within 10 years is a goal long sought by advocates, but it won’t be an easy undertaking.
While headlines continue to focus on the nation’s opioid crisis, a growing toll of overdoses and deaths related to methamphetamine use suggests this drug is making an under-the-radar comeback.
The program that provides health care for about half of the U.S. territory’s population cannot afford to cover the drugs.
Nearly every state in the country allows courts to force people with severe mental illnesses into treatment against their will. But critics argue these controversial intervention programs fail to address underlying problems in behavioral health services.
A new report by federal researchers finds that homicides involving guns are up both nationally and in major cities after a decade of decline.
Federal health officials are investigating 127 cases of the disease, called acute flaccid myelitis, or AFM.
Immigrants accounted for nearly 13 percent of premiums paid to private plans but only about 9 percent of insurers’ expenditures, according to a new study in Health Affairs. The cost of care for the group of native-born customers, however, exceeded their premiums.
The controversy over the death toll from Hurricane Maria continues as the president tweets that the official estimate adopted by territory officials is a political ploy.
A report, commissioned by officials in the American territory, finds initial estimates were far too low, and mortality rates in the six months after the storm were 20 percent higher than normal.
The island’s government must squeeze $840.2 million in annual savings from Medicaid by 2023, part of the U.S. territory’s agreement with the federal government as Puerto Rico claws its way back from fiscal oblivion. Experts warn such drastic cuts defy actuarial science.
The estimate, published in the journal JAMA, dwarfs the government’s toll of 64 but is far lower than another highly touted analysis.
The Red Cross and some other organizations suggest that first aid for choking begin with five slaps on the back. The family of Dr. Henry Heimlich, who developed the abdominal thrusts to dislodge objects that prevent breathing, is launching a campaign to demand proof of why back slaps should come first.
The vaccine, BCG, is relatively cheap. But experts caution the therapy could be overhyped and, if proven effective, wind up overpriced.
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