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A new poll from KFF shows many Americans aren’t willing to embrace misinformation — but aren’t willing to reject it either. And they don’t know whom to trust.
No local hospital and anemic ambulance services mean residents in rural Pickens County, Alabama, are thrown into perilous situations when they have medical emergencies. It’s a kind of medical care roulette that has become a fact of life for rural Americans who live in ambulance deserts.
In early 2020, U.S. public health labs received covid-19 tests from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that were flawed, as a result of poor design and contamination. Now the CDC is overhauling its lab operations, but efforts to be better prepared for future threats won’t be easy, observers say.
Community health workers, who often help patients get to their appointments and pick up prescriptions for them, have increasingly been recognized as an integral part of treating chronic illnesses. But state-run Medicaid programs don’t always reimburse them equally, usually excluding those who work on tribal lands.
The federal government is proposing having Medicare pay professionals to train family caregivers how to perform tasks like bathing and dressing their loved ones, and properly use medical equipment.
Brand-name drug prices in the U.S. — more than three times the price in other developed countries — are related neither to the amount of research and development required to bring them to market nor their therapeutic value, recent research shows. Have drugmakers overplayed their hand?
A federal appeals court issued a split decision on whether the abortion pill mifepristone should remain on the market — rejecting a lower court’s decision to effectively cancel the drug’s FDA approval in 2000, while ordering the rollback of more recent rules that made the drug easier to obtain. Nothing changes immediately, however, as the Supreme Court blocked the lower court’s ruling in the spring. It will be up to the high court to determine whether the pill remains available in the U.S. and under which conditions. Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Shefali Luthra of The 19th join KFF Health News’ chief Washington correspondent, Julie Rovner, to discuss these issues and more. Plus, for “extra credit,” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week they think you should read, too.
Pueblo, Colorado, residents have higher-than-average medical debt, while the city’s two tax-exempt hospitals provide relatively low levels of charity care.
Florida’s new immigration law requires hospitals to ask patients about their immigration status at admission and in emergency rooms, and report that information plus the cost of care for residents without legal status. Doctors and nurses who oppose the policy seem reluctant to criticize lawmakers for fear of political retribution.
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.
The No Surprises Act has helped rein in out-of-network medical bills, but ground ambulances are a costly exception. Hear why this service can still hit patients with big bills and what to do if you get one.
Federal officials are trying to clamp down on private arrangements among some hospitals to pay themselves back for the Medicaid taxes they’ve paid. State health officials and the influential hospital industry argue that regulators have no jurisdiction over the agreements.
An analysis of court records by the state treasurer and Duke researchers finds Atrium Health, originally a public hospital system, accounted for almost a third of the legal actions against North Carolina patients over roughly five years.
In the early 1970s, public health workers buoyed by the motto “zero pox!” worked across India to achieve 100% vaccination against smallpox. This episode is about what happened when these zealous young people encountered hesitation.
Kaiser Permanente, the California-based health care giant, is looking to dramatically expand its national presence. It’s committed $5 billion to a new unit called Risant Health and has agreed to acquire Pennsylvania-based Geisinger, but skeptics wonder how it will export its unique model to other states.
The day-to-day struggles that parents of kids with mental health conditions must navigate have led to their own crisis: The stress can take a physical toll that disrupts parents’ ability to provide care, say psychologists, researchers, and advocates for families.
A Biden administration proposal would help standardize the data on prices that hospitals provide to patients, increase its usefulness to consumers, and boost enforcement. Previous rules gave hospitals too many loopholes.
As hospitals are criticized for skimping on financial assistance, Santa Clara County has agreed to notify 43,000 former patients of possible billing reductions as part of a settlement. Some patients had sued, alleging the county’s hospital system sent them to collections for bills they shouldn’t have received.
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.
PBS NewsHour featured KFF Health News’ Aneri Pattani as it reported on how this debate is playing out in North Carolina and Ohio.
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