Latest KFF Health News Stories
Medicine’s Power Couples: A Challenge In Recruiting Physicians To Rural Areas
A research letter published in JAMA suggests that physicians increasingly marry people who match them in terms of educational levels and career pursuits, making it more difficult to attract them to small-town practices.
Insurers And Medicare Agree On Measures Tracking Doctors’ Quality
The first set of measures focus on seven types of care, including for hearts and cancer. The metrics will be integrated into formulas that determine physicians’ pay.
Hospitals Employ Email ‘Empathy’ To Help Doctors And Patients Keep In Touch
A better way to communicate with patients and track their progress?
Study: Doctors’ Texts Can Prod Patients To Take Drugs, But Questions Linger
In an analysis published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers found that text message reminders help patients do better when it comes to taking their medicines. But questions about the specific ways to make the most of this strategy remain.
Despite Kvetching, Most Consumers Satisfied With Health Plans: Poll
The survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that 71 percent of people with insurance believe their services are excellent or good.
Medical Advocates Can Help Guide Patients On Difficult Care Choices
Hired advocates help patients develop treatment plans, meet with doctors and explain options, among other services.
Democratic Candidates Debate ‘Single-Payer,’ But What Does That Mean?
The phrase often used for government-run health care means different things to different people. Here are five points to help explain the Democrats’ policy clash.
Fueled By Health Law, ‘Concierge Medicine’ Reaches New Markets
Doctors, insurers and others are kick-starting experiments to broaden access to direct primary care, a service long associated with only wealthy Americans.
Heavy Use Of CT Scans Raises Concerns About Patients’ Exposure To Radiation
CT scans, which are administered more than 85 million times a year, are an important diagnostic tool, but just one can be equivalent to 200 X-rays. Some doctors warn that health providers are not considering possible consequences when ordering the tests.
Obamacare Insurers Sweeten Plans With Free Doctor Visits
Some insurers are betting that lowering the barrier to seeing a doctor will encourage people to get needed care sooner. If it works, the health plans could save more than they spend on the benefit.
Hands Off That Frozen Pizza! Docs Advise Customers As They Shop
An Orange County, California hospital system is posting doctors at supermarkets to help customers make healthier choices. It’s part of a larger national effort among hospitals to improve community health outcomes.
New Kaiser Permanente Med School Part Of A Growing Trend
Twenty new schools opened in the past decade; but some doubt whether so many new doctors are needed.
Push On To Make Transparent Medical Records The National Standard Of Care
Four foundations joined forces to provide $10 million in new funding to the OpenNotes project, which will help an estimated 50 million people nationwide gain access to clinical notes, and allow researchers to evaluate how it affects health outcomes and costs.
Jobs For Medical Scribes Are Rising Rapidly But Standards Lag
More scribes are joining doctors in exam rooms with patients to assist with electronic health records, but not everyone is sold on the practice.
In Caring For Sickest Infants, Doctors Tap Parents For Tough Calls
Doctors were once unquestioned authorities on how aggressively to treat the sickest and most premature babies. Now, they increasingly include parents in these wrenching choices.
It’s On The Test: New Questions Require Doctors To Learn About Military Medicine
Medical licensing exams will include questions about military medicine, encouraging doctors to recognize and learn how to treat problems like PTSD.
A Med School Teaches Science And Data Mining
At NYU medical school, students learn to access huge troves of data to become doctors who understand the health care system, and individual ailments, better.
Pecked By A Chicken? Sucked Into A Jet Engine? There’s a Code For That
Voluminous and sometimes wacky new medical diagnostic codes in “ICD-10” have staffers at hospitals and doctors’ offices reaching for bromides.
Seniors Tell Medical Students What They Need From Doctors
Many students avoid geriatrics because of the low pay and high complications, but six people over 90 offer a different perspective to help attract young doctors.
Study Finds Improvements In Pay, But Not Equity, For Women Anesthesiologists
RAND Corp. researchers find that more women are going into anesthesiology and getting paid better, but they still trail their male counterparts.
