Montana Considers Allowing Physician Assistants to Practice Independently
The bill, modeled on laws in North Dakota and Wyoming, is opposed by doctors who say it would let physician assistants practice outside the scope of their training.
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The bill, modeled on laws in North Dakota and Wyoming, is opposed by doctors who say it would let physician assistants practice outside the scope of their training.
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.
Last year, state lawmakers adopted the country’s toughest online privacy restrictions. The law offers Congress a path forward on federal protections even as it serves as a cautionary tale for taking on Big Tech.
Sparing veterans and defense spending, as Republicans promise, would be extremely difficult, requiring cuts of more than 20% in other parts of the budget. The Republicans’ Limit, Save, Grow Act already proposes a $2 billion cut to the Department of Veterans Affairs by taking back unspent covid relief funding.
The “front door” to the health system is changing, under pressure from increased demand, consolidation, and changing patient expectations.
Billing experts and lawmakers are playing catch-up as providers find ways to get around new surprise-billing laws, leaving patients like Danielle Laskey of Washington state with big bills for emergency care.
President Donald Trump called for an end to the "unpleasant surprise" of certain medical bills on Thursday. NPR reporter Selena Simmons-Duffin covered the White House announcement, which featured two patients from the KHN-NPR "Bill of the Month" series.
Doctors rushed a pregnant woman to a surgeon who charged thousands upfront just to see her. The case reveals a gap in medical billing protections for those with rare, specialized conditions.
A proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule calls for companies to disclose PFAS manufactured or imported since 2011. The chemical industry is upset because such compliance would cost an estimated $1 billion, while environmental health advocates worry because the rule wouldn’t ban the chemicals outright.
The House finally has a new speaker: Mike Johnson (R-La). He’s a relative newcomer who’s been a lower-level member of the House GOP leadership. And while he’s an outspoken opponent of abortion and same-sex marriage, his record on other health issues is scant. Meanwhile, the National Institutes of Health appears on track to be getting a new director, and Georgia’s Medicaid work requirement experiment is off to a very slow start. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico and Rachel Cohrs of Stat join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.
For our 100th episode, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Jen Haberkorn of the Los Angeles Times and Sandhya Ramen of CQ Roll Call join KHN’s Julie Rovner to take a deep dive into the abortion debate, discussing everything from the latest news to the history of the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence as well as how states are trying to further expand or restrict abortion rights and access. Also, Rovner interviews KHN’s Lauren Weber about the latest “Bill of the Month” installment.
Doctors have no national standards on when to order urine tests to check whether adult ADHD patients are properly taking their prescription stimulants. Some patients are subjected to much more frequent testing than others.
State and local governments will receive a windfall of more than $50 billion over 18 years from settlements with companies that made, sold, or distributed opioid painkillers. Using the funds for law enforcement has triggered important questions about what the money was meant for.
The federal government’s arcane process for medical coding is influencing which reconstructive surgery options are available, creating anxiety for breast cancer patients.
Annie Malloy, of San Diego, is among the first to receive a new housing move-in benefit from Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program. It’s an effort to help homeless and near-homeless people who might otherwise rack up huge medical bills.
Under federal law, people who have been raped don’t have to pay for medical forensic exams, yet many get billed and have trouble getting the hospitals or collection agencies to stop dunning them for payment.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is getting pressure from his political allies to begin spending money on health care that the state raised by fining Californians who go without health insurance. But Newsom says the state can’t afford to.
A Florida woman tried to dispute an emergency room bill, but the hospital and collection agency refused to talk to her — because it was her child’s name on the bill, not hers.
Women are the fastest-growing group among U.S. veterans. The Department of Veterans Affairs says it is working to meet their health needs, including pregnancy care.
A warning from the Treasury Department that the U.S. could default on its debt as soon as June 1 has galvanized lawmakers to intervene. But there is still no obvious way to reconcile Republican demands to slash federal spending with President Joe Biden’s demand to raise the debt ceiling and save the spending fight for a later date. Meanwhile, efforts to pass abortion bans in conservative states are starting to stall as some Republicans rebel against the most severe bans. Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico, Rachel Cohrs of Stat, and Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico join KFF Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more.
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