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Health insurers and health care systems across the country are violating disability rights laws by sending medical bills that blind and visually impaired people cannot read, a KHN investigation has found. By hindering the ability of blind Americans to know what they owe, some bills get sent to debt collections.
South Dakotans voted to expand the state’s Medicaid program to cover thousands of additional low-income residents. But as other conservative states have shown, voter approval doesn’t always mean politicians and administrators will rush to implement the change.
Centene, the largest Medicaid managed-care company in the U.S., has thrown more than $26.9 million at political campaigns across the country since 2015, especially focused on states where it is wooing Medicaid contracts and settling accusations that it overbilled taxpayers. Among its tactics: Centene is skirting contribution limits by giving to candidates through its many subsidiaries.
Federal officials have ordered the probe after reports that a woman whose water broke at 18 weeks could not get medical care recommended by her doctors to end the pregnancy because hospital officials were concerned about Missouri’s strict abortion law.
The 2018 farm bill that legalized hemp created a loophole for an unregulated copycat of marijuana. A form of delta-9 THC — the psychoactive substance in pot — doesn’t face the same laws and regulations as marijuana because it comes from hemp. The drug is poised to upend the cannabis industry.
Veterans Affairs’ electronic health records aren’t friendly to blind- and low-vision users, whether they’re patients or employees. It’s a microcosm of America’s health care system.
Centene is trying to settle accusations of Medicaid pharmaceutical overcharging in Georgia, and the St. Louis-based company has been giving thousands of dollars to the campaigns of the state attorney general and the governor.
The cheaper over-the-counter aids are for adults with mild to moderate hearing loss — a market of tens of millions of people, many of whom have until now been priced out because prescription devices can cost thousands of dollars.
KHN and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
Massachusetts is the latest state to settle with St. Louis-based Centene Corp. over allegations that it overcharged Medicaid prescription drug programs.
Two Missouri towns are without operating hospitals after private equity-backed Noble Health left both facilities mired in debt, lawsuits, and federal investigations. The hospitals’ new operator, Platinum Health, agreed to buy them in April for $2 and laid off the last employees in early September.
Texas is at least the 12th state to settle with St. Louis-based Centene Corp. over allegations that it overcharged Medicaid prescription drug programs.
As private equity groups are swarming into aging America’s eye care, the consolidation is costing the U.S. health care system and patients more money.
California and New York would be the first states to require anyone under 18 to obtain prescriptions to purchase over-the-counter weight loss products, which some research has linked to eating disorders.
For decades, the U.S. medical establishment has adhered to a legally recognized standard for brain death, one embraced by most states. Why is a uniform clinical standard for the inception of human life proving so elusive?
The U.S. Labor Department investigates Noble Health after former employees of its shuttered Missouri hospitals say the private equity-backed owner took money from their paychecks and then failed to fund their insurance coverage.
People whose brains have been injured by concussions, traumatic accidents, strokes, or neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson’s disease can benefit from targeted therapy. Experts also employ therapies for long-covid patients with memory and language problems.
Sexual health clinics are scrambling to properly track, test, and treat hundreds of monkeypox patients. So far, it isn’t going well.
Spurred on by opposition to pandemic-related health mandates, a coalition of religious liberty groups, conservative think tanks, and Republican state attorneys general has filed a cascade of litigation seeking to rein in the powers of public health authorities.
About 930,000 abortions occurred in the U.S. in 2020, an 8% increase from 2017. But that nationwide figure belies dramatic variation among states — disparities expected to magnify in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe v. Wade.
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