Latest KFF Health News Stories
Why N.Y. City ER Doctors Won’t Write That Painkiller Prescription
This story comes from our partner ‘s Shots blog. Early this year, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said public hospitals there would take steps to reduce overdoses and abuse of opioid painkillers. The drugs have become a public health problem. Narcotic painkillers, such as Vicodin and Oxycontin, are involved in more than 16,000 overdose deaths […]
Got A Health Care Puzzle? There Should Be An App!
Kansas City, Mo., is looking to boost its health-tech cred. So the city that’s home to Cerner Corp. and other health information firms seemed a natural to host something called the Hackovate Health Innovation Competition. A mashup of innovation and old-school hacking (in its benign sense), the goal of the competition was to improve the nation’s […]
C-Section Delivery Rates Vary Widely Across Nation
Rates of C-section deliveries vary widely across the nation, according to the findings of a new study. The study, published Monday in the journal Health Affairs, found that the overall rates of C-sections — the most common type of surgery in the U.S. — varied from about 7 to 70 percent across the nation’s hospitals. […]
Prostate Screening Tests In Older Men Decline, But Many Still Get Them, Study Finds
Fewer men over age 75 are being routinely screened for cancer with a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test following a 2008 recommendation against the tests, researchers said today, suggesting a less-is-more approach sometimes works. But while the numbers have declined, they remain significant – more than 4 in 10 men in that group still get the […]
Florida House Panel Opposes Medicaid Expansion
The Florida House of Representatives has signaled it won’t go along with Gov. Rick Scott to expand Medicaid coverage to more than a million low-income Floridians under the Affordable Care Act. The party-line vote came Monday shortly after a joint committee hearing on the law’s financial impact on the state. Under the federal health care […]
Expert: Hospitals’ ‘Humongous Monopoly’ Drives Prices High
The American Enterprise Institute didn’t plan its panel last week on hospital consolidation to coincide with Steve Brill’s much-talked-about Time magazine article on hospital prices. But the Friday session could have taken the piece, Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us, as its text. Participants mentioned it several times. The basic message, delivered at the pro-markets […]
Panel Calls For ‘Drastic Changes’ In Medicare Doctor Pay
A panel convened by a major medical group is recommending that Medicare heal its physician payment shortfalls with “drastic changes” in how it reimburses doctors and other providers, rather than seeking more taxpayer money. Medicare needs $138 billion over the next decade to avoid steep cuts in physician pay. Avoiding those cuts has become an […]
Nurse Practitioners Say How They’re Paid Affects Care They Can Provide
Many nurse practitioners say restrictive payment policies impact how they care for patients more than state laws governing what care they can give, according to a new study. In the study, published Thursday by the National Institute for Health Care Reform, researchers found that while so-called “scope of practice” laws did not appear to restrict […]
New Reasons To ‘Like’ Online Hospital Reviews
Millions of dollars and some of the best minds in health care have been devoted to measuring how good a hospital is. But two studies suggest users of two social media giants, Facebook and Yelp, may do a solid job of reflecting quality. The findings are particularly important as more people are turning to the […]
Mass. Weighs Governor’s Plan To Tax Candy And Soda
Are candy and soda food? In Massachusetts, candy and soda are considered food and are exempt from the state’s 6.25 percent sales tax. But Gov. Deval Patrick wants to change that. He’s proposing that the legislature tax every bag of M&M’s and bottle of Pepsi bought in the state. “Half of the people in the […]
Hospital Consolidation Dance Heats Up In NYC
The health care game of musical chairs is picking up speed in New York City, one of the most competitive markets in the country. The Mount Sinai Medical Center and Continuum Health Partners announced Thursday that their boards of trustees have reached a tentative agreement on a possible merger. The announcement comes less than nine months after Continuum, which […]
Tenet Shows Hospitals Will Cut Prices For Exchange Patients — But Only So Much
How much will hospitals reduce prices in an effort to win what are expected to be millions of newly insured patients under the Affordable Care Act? A little, not a lot, if deals disclosed this week by Tenet Healthcare are any indication. The Dallas-based hospital chain told analysts that its first contracts to treat patients buying policies in the ACA’s online marketplaces […]
Some States Will Rate Health Plans On Quality This Fall
Beginning in October, some states will score health plans on cancer screening rates and flu shot delivery, among other measures, to help consumers make smarter buying decisions.
Messaging Your Doctor? There’s An App For That
Last year Dr. Michael Nusbaum introduced a mobile application in an effort to make scheduling a medical appointment as easy as sending a Facebook message to a friend, and as safe as sharing your medical information in person at the doctor’s office. The New Jersey-based surgeon said he designed MedXCom “to bring doctor-patient communication to the twenty-first […]
Ways & Means Chairman Hopes To Move Medicare ‘Doc Fix’ Plan
The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee made clear Tuesday that finding a solution to the vexing issue of setting Medicare physician payment rates is on his to-do list this year, and he got some tepid support from a key Democrat. Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., said that the effort could be helped by a recent reassessment […]
Americans Uncomfortable Around Mentally Ill Despite Acknowledging Discrimination
The public has a contradictory view of mental illness, according to a new poll. While most Americans believe people with such ailments are the victims of prejudice and discrimination, a substantial portion of the public say they have qualms about working in the same place or having their children attend a school where someone with a […]
House Panel Examines Nuts & Bolts Of Changing Traditional Medicare
Outside of the heat of election season, a House subcommittee chaired by GOP Rep. Kevin Brady begins examining options for cost savings in traditional Medicare. KHN’s Mary Agnes Carey and Jackie Judd discuss the proceedings.
Medicaid, Sequester Weighing On Govs’ Minds At Annual Winter Meeting
This story comes from our partner ‘s Shots blog. When the nation’s governors gathered in Washington, D.C., over the weekend for their annual winter meeting, the gathering’s official theme was about efforts to hire people with disabilities. But out of the public eye, at the sessions for “governors only,” the discussion reportedly was dominated by […]
3 Hill Panels Examining Changes To Medicare
Updated at 12:10 p.m. With $85 billion in automatic federal spending cuts set to take effect on Friday and predictions of economic disruption, much of official Washington is focused on the “blame game.” Publicly, there has been no sign that Congress or administration officials has made any progress on averting these cuts or finding common […]
Survey: Better Hours For Residents? Not So Fast
The new rules regulating duty hours were supposed to make life easier for medical residents, but both program directors and doctors-in-training give the changes mixed reviews. These latest changes, implemented in July 2011, limit first-year residents, also called interns, to 16-hour shifts. They were put in place by the private, nonprofit Accreditation Council for Graduate […]
