Bram Sable-Smith

States Get in on the Prior Authorization Crackdown

KFF Health News Original

Last month, my colleague Lauren Sausser told you about the Biden administration’s crackdown on insurance plans’ prior authorization policies, with new rules for certain health plans participating in federal programs such as Medicare Advantage or the Affordable Care Act marketplace. States are getting in on the action, too. Prior authorization, sometimes called pre-certification, requires patients […]

States Target Health Insurers’ ‘Prior Authorization’ Red Tape

KFF Health News Original

Doctors, patients, and hospitals have railed for years about the prior authorization processes that health insurers use to decide whether they’ll pay for patients’ drugs or medical procedures. The Biden administration announced a crackdown in January, but some state lawmakers are looking to go further.

Ohio Votes on Abortion Rights Today. Eleven States May Follow in 2024.

KFF Health News Original

Voters in Ohio are deciding whether to add abortion rights protections to the state’s constitution today.  The vote comes on the heels of last year’s string of ballot measure wins for abortion rights in six states: California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana and Vermont. But this is just the start. Next year, 11 more states could see abortion-related […]

Funyuns and Flu Shots? Gas Station Company Ventures Into Urgent Care

KFF Health News Original

A Tulsa-based gas station chain is using its knowledge of how to serve customers and locate shops in easy-to-find spots to enter the urgent care industry, which has doubled in size over the past decade. Experts question how the explosion of convenient clinics will affect care costs and wait times.

Can a Fetus Be an Employee? States Are Testing the Boundaries of Personhood After ‘Dobbs’

KFF Health News Original

Laws granting rights to unborn children have spread in the decades since the U.S. and Missouri supreme courts allowed Missouri’s definition of life as beginning at conception to stand. Now, a wrongful death lawsuit involving a workplace accident shows how sprawling those laws — often intended to curb abortion — have become.

A Medical Cost-Sharing Plan Left Pastor With Most Of The Cost

KFF Health News Original

Jeff and Kareen King joined a medical cost-sharing plan advertised as a “refreshing non-insurance approach” to paying for health care. It had a big proviso: Preexisting conditions like Jeff’s heart condition were not fully covered for the first two years. He needed heart surgery after just 16 months.