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State institutions and community hospitals have closed inpatient mental health units, often citing staffing and financial challenges. Now, for-profit companies are opening psychiatric hospitals to fill the void.
A 22-year-old was shot in the head in St. Louis. As a surgical team prepared him for organ harvesting, his neurosurgeon raced to the operating room to stop it, saying that his patient had a chance at life. Today, the man is alive, sharing his story.
California’s Medicaid program is relying heavily on community groups to deliver new social services to vulnerable patients, such as security deposits for homeless people and air purifiers for asthma patients. But many of these nonprofits face staffing and billing challenges and haven’t been able to deliver services effectively.
As lobbyists purporting to represent doctors and hospitals fight attempts to control surprise medical bills, it has become increasingly clear that the force behind the effort is not just medical professionals, but also investors from private equity firms.
The federal government put guardrails in place to limit unauthorized plan sign-ups and switches. But the changes could prove to be a burden to consumers.
In 21st-century US health care, everything is revenue, and so everything is billed.
Health care weathered more ransomware attacks last year than any other sector, and that was before a debilitating February hack of payments manager Change Healthcare. Executives, lawyers, and policymakers are worried the federal government’s response is underpowered, underfunded, and too focused on hospital security.
The FDA and some oncologists have resisted efforts to require a quick, cheap gene test that could prevent thousands of deaths from a bad reaction to a common cancer drug.
Patients were thrilled last month when UVA announced it would scale back lawsuits and provide more financial assistance, but the excitement has waned.
Inoculation campaigns that protect children and adults from dangerous diseases rely on a delicate web of state and federal laws and programs. If senior officials cast doubt on vaccine safety, the whole system might collapse, especially in red states.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had another tough week. In addition to Kennedy having rotator cuff surgery, the nomination of his ally to become surgeon general is teetering, the controversial head of the FDA's vaccine center is resigning next month, and a new survey shows Americans trust government health officials less than they do former Biden official Anthony Fauci. Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico Magazine, and Shefali Luthra of The 19th join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more.
An emergency room doctor says what the TV show “The Pitt” gets right about hospitals, including why they’re so crowded and the bills so high.
A recently unsealed lawsuit alleges Aledade Inc. developed billing software that boosted revenues by making patients appear sicker than they were.
The Trump administration faces the challenge of naming a new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who can both satisfy the Make America Healthy Again movement and get confirmed by the Senate. Meanwhile, a new Senate bill to rescind the approval of the abortion pill mifepristone is again elevating the abortion debate, which some Republicans would prefer to stay on the back burner until after the midterms. Shefali Luthra of The 19th, Lizzy Lawrence of Stat, and Rachel Cohrs Zhang of Bloomberg News join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss the news. Also this week, Rovner interviews Georgetown University Law Center’s Katie Keith about the state of the Affordable Care Act on its 16th anniversary.
In California, where abortion rights are guaranteed, there’s a loophole. The growth of Catholic hospital systems, which restrict reproductive health care, has left patients with no other option for care. That will be the case for pregnant women in Northern California, with a hospital set to close its birth center.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is offline — for now. Here’s what that could mean for people with medical debt.
The twists and turns continue at the nation’s health agency, where this week’s announcements included notice that the FDA will review Moderna’s new flu vaccine after all and that a handful of top agency officials are getting new jobs. Those developments and others can be traced to a White House looking to shake things up before the midterms — and win over voters on health care. Tami Luhby of CNN, Shefali Luthra of The 19th, and Lauren Weber of The Washington Post join KFF Health News’ Mary Agnes Carey to discuss these stories and more.
By withdrawing from the World Health Organization and overhauling aid, Trump’s new executive orders endanger Americans and the globe, researchers warn. The move also cedes U.S. power to other nations.
The cyberattack on a unit of UnitedHealth Group’s Optum division is the worst on the health care industry in U.S. history, hospitals say. Providers struggling to get paid for care say the response by the insurer and the Biden administration has been inadequate.
911 outages have hit at least eight states this year. They’re emblematic of problems plaguing emergency response communications due in part to wide disparities in capabilities and funding.
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