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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.
New research shows how an experience with surprise medical bills can guide patients’ future decision-making.
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.
Artificial intelligence software to aid radiologists in detecting problems or diagnosing cancer has been moving rapidly into clinical use, where it shows great promise. But it’s a turnoff for some patients asked to pay out-of-pocket for technology that’s not quite ready for prime time.
Framed in the rhetoric of choice, Tennessee’s new law governing childhood vaccinations is among more than a dozen recently passed or pending nationwide that set parental freedom against community and children’s health.
In what will certainly be remembered as a landmark decision, the Supreme Court has overruled a 40-year-old precedent that gave federal agencies, rather than judges, the power to interpret ambiguous laws passed by Congress. Administrative experts say the decision will dramatically change the way key health agencies do business. Also, the court decided not to decide whether a federal law requiring hospitals to provide emergency care overrides Idaho’s near-total ban on abortion. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Victoria Knight of Axios, and Joanne Kenen of Johns Hopkins University and Politico Magazine join KFF Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more. Plus, for “extra credit,” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week they think you should read, too.
Clinicians working for Ascension hospitals in multiple states described harrowing lapses, including delayed or lost lab results, medication errors, and an absence of routine safety checks to prevent potentially fatal mistakes.
The Republican’s legislation, prepared with Sen. Patty Murray, the ranking Democrat on Alexander’s health committee, would be an ambitious lift because it also deals with prescription drug patents, health transparency and vaccine messaging.
For the second time in as many months, the Supreme Court heard arguments in an abortion case. This time, the justices are being asked to decide whether a federal law that requires emergency care in hospitals can trump Idaho’s near-total abortion ban. Meanwhile, the federal government, for the first time, will require minimum staffing standards for nursing homes. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Tami Luhby of CNN, and Joanne Kenen of Johns Hopkins University and Politico Magazine join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more. Plus, for “extra credit,” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week they think you should read, too.
In a faceoff that took some strange turns, five presidential hopefuls focused on foreign affairs and inflation but still revealed the party’s political struggles over its abortion position. Once again, former President Donald Trump did not appear on the debate stage.
The four-page bill lists how states should spend settlement money, but it doesn’t specify consequences for flouting the rules or name who is in charge of monitoring compliance.
The Affordable Care Act and other federal laws sought to put mental health care on an equal footing with physical health. But patients are still finding that’s not the case.
Candidates see former President Donald Trump’s embrace of his administration’s covid-19 vaccine policies as an opportunity to gain ground. So far, their efforts haven’t found traction.
A little-noticed provision of sweeping legislation to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration would make it easier to fly human organs from donor to recipient.
Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom will square off in a first-of-its-kind debate on Nov. 30. KFF Health News compared the political rivals’ health care positions, showing how their policies have helped — or hindered — the health of their states’ residents.
The health care insurers, nonprofit organizations, and other groups responsible for implementing Gov. Gavin Newsom’s ambitious plan to infuse Medicaid with social services say their ability to serve vulnerable, low-income Californians is hamstrung.
In Texas, many people have a right to mediation of medical bills. But the concept can be off-putting, and patients often think they need a lawyer, which isn't the case.
The controversial practice of administering progesterone to people after they have taken the abortion pill mifepristone may be coming to an end in Colorado. Pills have emerged as the latest front in the war over abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer.
Health providers may bill however they choose — including in ways that could leave patients with unexpected bills for “free” care. Routine preventive care saddled an Illinois couple with his-and-her bills for “surgical trays.”
More than a quarter century after an inmate helped start a hospice program in one of the nation’s most notorious prisons, he is trying to spread the idea.
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