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Software sifts through millions of medical records to match patients with similar diagnoses and characteristics and then predicts what kind of care an individual will need and for how long. New federal rules will ensure human experts are part of the process.
In this special encore episode, KFF Health News’ “What the Health?” asks three people who have served as the nation’s top health official: What does a day in the life of the U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services look like? And how much of their agenda is set by the White House? Taped in June before a live audience at Aspen Ideas: Health, part of the Aspen Ideas Festival, in Aspen, Colorado, host and chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner leads a rare conversation with the current and two former HHS secretaries. Secretary Xavier Becerra and former secretaries Kathleen Sebelius and Alex Azar talk candidly about what it takes to run a department with more than 80,000 employees and a budget larger than those of many countries.
In the wake of an investigation by KFF Health News and Cox Media Group, the SSA acting commissioner said a special team will review “overpayment policies and procedures” and report directly back to her.
Dollar General’s pilot mobile clinic program has been touted by company officials, rural health experts, and analysts as a model that could help solve rural America’s primary care shortage. But its Tennessee launch has been met with local skepticism.
Colorado is among several states that ensure schools have access to the opioid overdose reversal medication naloxone for free or at reduced cost. But most districts hadn’t signed up by the start of the school year for a state distribution program amid stigma around the lifesaving treatment.
The American College of Emergency Physicians will vote in early October on whether to disavow its 2009 research paper on excited delirium, which has been cited as a cause of death and used as a legal defense by police officers in several high-profile cases.
Mississippi has the highest rate of maternal mortality in the U.S. Now, it also has a federal grant to help in rural areas. The award could signal more flexibility from federal officials.
KFF Health News and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
Lawmakers are faulting the Social Security Administration for issuing billions of dollars of payments that beneficiaries weren’t entitled to receive — and then demanding the money back — in the wake of an investigation by KFF Health News and Cox Media Group.
A breast cancer patient who received similar treatments in two states saw significant differences in cost, illuminating how care in remote areas can come with a stiffer price tag.
Ballad Health, the only hospital system across a large swath of Tennessee and Virginia, has fallen short of quality-of-care and charity care obligations — even as it’s sued thousands of patients for unpaid bills.
Though never framed as a marquee issue, the topic of health care crept into the chaotic seven-way faceoff throughout the evening, highlighting Republican culture-war themes.
KFF Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.
Increasingly, hospitals are merging across separate markets within states. It’s a move that health economists and the Federal Trade Commission have been closely watching, as evidence shows such mergers raise prices for patients with no improvement in care.
As more seniors opt for Medicare Advantage, a few small insurers have begun offering plans that provide culturally targeted benefits for cohorts including Asian Americans, Latinos, and LGBTQ+ people. The approach, policy researchers say, has potential and perils.
At least 30 states are reinstating coverage for children wrongly removed from the rolls under Medicaid redetermination, the federal government reported. It’s just the latest hiccup in the massive effort to review the eligibility of Medicaid beneficiaries now that the program’s pandemic-era expansion has expired. And federal oversight of the so-called unwinding would be further complicated by an impending government shutdown. Rachel Roubein of The Washington Post, Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call, and Sarah Karlin-Smith of Pink Sheet join KFF Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews KFF Health News’ Samantha Liss, who reported and wrote the latest KFF Health News-NPR “Bill of the Month” feature, about a hospital bill that followed a deceased patient’s family for more than a year.
“People want covid-19 to be in the rearview mirror,” one nursing home official says. Faced with a slow rollout of the updated covid vaccines, and without state mandates for workers to get vaccinated, most skilled nursing facilities are relying on persuasion to boost vaccination rates among staff and residents.
Medicare and Medicaid shouldn’t be affected, but confusion can be expected.
A report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services raises troubling questions about the use of powerful medications within Florida’s child welfare system and the risk of overdoses or dangerous side effects if children are given the wrong combination of drugs.
Episode 5 of the “Eradicating Smallpox” podcast explores how a partnership between public health institutions and a huge, influential private company was key in the campaign to eliminate smallpox.
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