Latest News On Hospitals

Latest KFF Health News Stories

Surging Health Care Worker Quarantines Raise Concerns As Coronavirus Spreads

KFF Health News Original

The number of U.S. health care workers who have been ordered to self-quarantine because of potential exposure to the new coronavirus is rising at an exponential pace. Many experts say something has to change.

Analysis: Who Profits From Steep Medical Bills? The People Tasked With Fixing Them.

KFF Health News Original

Surprise bills are just the latest weapons in a decades-long war among health care industry players over who gets to keep the fortunes generated each year from patient illness: $3.6 trillion in 2018. The practice is an outrage, yet no one in the health care sector wants to unilaterally make the type of big concessions that would change things.

Patients Caught In Crossfire Between Giant Hospital Chain, Large Insurer

KFF Health News Original

Insurance giant Cigna and San Francisco-based Dignity Health have failed to ink a 2020 contract, leaving nearly 17,000 patients in California and Nevada scrambling to find new health care providers. Meanwhile, Dignity faces financial and legal challenges while it strives to implement its merger with Catholic Health Initiatives, which created one of the nation’s largest Catholic hospital systems.

Preeminent Hospitals Penalized Over Rates Of Patients’ Injuries

KFF Health News Original

Medicare cut payments for 786 hospitals because of high infection and complication rates. They included a third of the hospitals proclaimed as the nation’s best in one prominent ranking.

Appendicitis Is Painful — Add A $41,212 Surgery Bill To The Misery

KFF Health News Original

A young man averted medical disaster after a friend took him to the nearest hospital just before his appendix burst. But more than a year later, he’s still facing a $28,000 balance bill for his out-of-network surgery.

Le cobran $41,212 por sacarle el apéndice

KFF Health News Original

Nadie le dijo que el hospital estaba fuera de la red del plan médico que tenía a través de su trabajo. En cualquier caso, no hubiera podido irse a otro lugar. Su apéndice estaba a punto de reventar.

Terminally Ill, He Wanted Aid-In-Dying. His Catholic Hospital Said No.

KFF Health News Original

Neil Mahoney had terminal cancer. He also had a legal right to aid-in-dying. But his faith-based hospital called it “morally unacceptable.” So he turned to a network of Colorado doctors to fulfill his last wish.

Listen: How High-Deductible Plans Hurt Rural America

KFF Health News Original

KHN senior correspondent Markian Hawryluk joined Colorado Public Radio’s Avery Lill on “Colorado Matters” to discuss his recent story on how high-deductible health plans are especially hurting the financial health of patients and hospitals in rural America.

No Shield From X-Rays: How Science Is Rethinking Lead Aprons

KFF Health News Original

A number of radiology organizations are trying to end the decades-old practice of shielding patients from radiation with lead aprons. They say it provides no benefit and might even inadvertently expose people to higher radiation levels. But the policy about-face is moving slowly.