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Doctors, patients, and hospitals have railed for years about the prior authorization processes that health insurers use to decide whether they’ll pay for patients’ drugs or medical procedures. The Biden administration announced a crackdown in January, but some state lawmakers are looking to go further.
Fewer than two dozen rural hospitals were converted into Rural Emergency Hospitals in the program’s first year. Now, advocates and lawmakers say tweaks to the law are necessary to lure more takers and keep health care in rural communities.
Casinos in several states are fighting efforts to ban smoking, and trying to roll back existing anti-smoking laws. One planned facility even moved outside a city’s limits because of voter-approved smoking restrictions.
Even in states where laws protect minors’ access to gender-affirming care, malpractice insurance premiums are keeping small and independent clinics from treating patients.
Deep gaps in rural America’s child care system threaten communities’ stability by shrinking the workforce and inhibiting economic potential. Now that pandemic-era federal aid for child care programs and low-income families has ended, it’s up to state and local leaders to find solutions.
Thousands of medical devices are sold, and even implanted, with no safety tests.
Thousands of people shared their experiences and related to the financial drain on families portrayed in the “Dying Broke” series, a joint project by KFF Health News and The New York Times that examined the costs of long-term care.
KFF Health News and California Healthline staffers made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
The bottleneck caused by states’ reevaluation of Medicaid enrollees has swept up low-income families that rely on other safety-net services.
Anti-abortion groups have lost seven consecutive elections on state ballot measures about abortion. They say they’re unfazed and plan to keep focusing on lawmakers and courts to notch wins.
State legislatures and politicians are pressuring public health officials to keep quiet about covid vaccines.
Ohio is the latest state where voters have directly weighed in on abortion, and the next wave of such ballot measures is in the works in at least 11 other states, including Missouri.
As Medicaid programs across the nation review enrollees' status in the wake of the pandemic, patients struggle to navigate the upheaval.
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.
High-risk patients from states that heavily restrict abortion are coming to hospitals in states such as Illinois that protect abortion rights. The journey can mean more medical risks and higher bills.
To contain the opioid crisis, health and law enforcement agencies have turned to technology to monitor doctor and patient prescription data. Experts have raised questions about how these systems work and worry about their accuracy and potential biases. Some patients and doctors say they’re being unfairly targeted.
A widow encountered a perplexing reality in medical billing: Providers can come after patients to collect well after a bill has been paid.
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.
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.
Clinics serving Alzheimer’s patients are working out the details of who will get treated with the new drug Leqembi. It won’t be for everyone with memory-loss symptoms.
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