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Colorado lawmakers approved a measure that will make it easier for people to fix their power wheelchairs when they wear out or break down, but arcane regulations and manufacturers create high hurdles for nationwide reform.
Debt lawsuits — long a byproduct of America’s medical debt crisis — can ensnare not only patients but also those who help sick and older people be admitted to nursing homes, a KHN-NPR investigation finds.
The 2020 census undercounted people living on Native American reservations. The money for many needed federal aid programs is tied to those population numbers.
Although identifying long covid in older adults can be tricky, experts say there are good strategies for getting medical advice and fighting the impact of the virus.
Loan closets are playing an important role as supply chain issues and the rising price of aluminum have led to shortages in medical equipment such as wheelchairs, walkers, crutches, and knee scooters.
House Republicans passed their plan to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, along with major cuts to health (and other domestic) programs. Unlikely to become law, it calls for new work requirements for adults on Medicaid. Meanwhile, state efforts targeting trans people bear a striking resemblance to the fight against abortion rights. Jessie Hellmann of CQ Roll Call, Shefali Luthra of The 19th, and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join KFF Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Renuka Rayasam, who reported the latest KFF Health News-NPR “Bill of the Month” feature, about a specialist’s demand to be paid as much as $15,000 before treating a woman’s serious pregnancy complication.
Georgia lawmakers unveiled a mental health bill that would limit the profits of the managed-care companies that serve Medicaid patients. KHN previously reported that Georgia, unlike most states, does not set a medical loss ratio for the companies’ spending on medical care and quality improvements.
Service dogs can help people with ailments from autism to epilepsy, but a trained dog can cost up to $40,000 — and insurance won’t cover it.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has yet to make clear its stand on Roe v. Wade. But state lawmakers aren’t waiting to consider a variety of extreme measures: bills that would ban abortions in cases of ectopic pregnancies, allow rapists’ families to object to terminating a victim’s pregnancy, or prohibit the procedure in the case of fetal disability. Do these proposals make the less extreme restrictions seem more mainstream?
Many public health workers are unable to see how many doses of Pfizer’s antiviral treatment are shipped to their communities and cannot tell whether vulnerable residents are filling prescriptions as often as their wealthier neighbors.
About 50% of the covid-19 patients who got the last-ditch life support treatment at Vanderbilt University Medical Center died. Researchers wanted to know what happened to the many patients they had to turn away because ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) machines and the specialized staffers needed were in short supply. The grim answer: 90% of those turned away perished.
Millions of older adults are grappling with long covid, yet the impact on them has received little attention even though research suggests seniors are more likely to develop the poorly understood condition than younger or middle-aged adults.
Patients with symptoms that last three to 12 weeks after an acute covid infection should adopt a “watchful waiting” approach to recovery, an expert says. Keep in contact with a primary care doctor and take it easy.
Home health and hospice agencies are experiencing extreme worker shortages, which means they can’t provide services to all the patients seeking care.
At a camp for kids in Nashville, physical therapists use “constraint-induced movement therapy.” It makes life tougher, temporarily, in hopes of strengthening the campers’ ability to navigate the world.
The WA Cares Fund program, which would provide workers in the state a lifetime benefit of $36,500, was set to begin collecting money through a payroll tax in January, but it was delayed while lawmakers made adjustments to address equity problems. Now the payroll deductions will begin in July 2023, and benefits will become available in 2026.
Becca Levy of Yale University talks with “Navigating Aging” columnist Judith Graham about how people can alter ingrained perceptions of aging — which are often formed unconsciously and are unrecognized.
Two rapid-testing initiatives the Biden administration released in the past week are inaccessible to some residents of multifamily housing, people who don’t speak English well, or those without internet access.
Bucking the alarming spike in overall homicides in recent years, the homicide rate involving young children is down 70% in California from three decades ago. The nation has seen a parallel, albeit slower, decline.
States are required to set up transportation to medical appointments for adults, children and people with disabilities enrolled in the Medicaid program, and contracts can be worth tens of millions of dollars for transportation companies. But patients say the companies that deliver those rides are showing up late — and sometimes not at all — leaving them in bad weather, disrupting their care and even causing injuries.
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