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New Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley is promising to change how the agency reclaims billions of dollars it wrongly pays to beneficiaries, saying the existing process is “cruel-hearted and mindless.”
For-profit groups own more than 70% of U.S. nursing homes. Industry leaders and researchers wonder whether corporations and investors can succeed where not-for-profit organizations have struggled. Or, will quality of care suffer in the name of making money?
A recently unsealed lawsuit alleges Aledade Inc. developed billing software that boosted revenues by making patients appear sicker than they were.
Illegal supplies of fentanyl are being cut with xylazine, a powerful horse tranquilizer. Overdoses involving this veterinary sedative are growing nationally and now Florida officials are tracking the deaths.
Cities are experimenting with new ways to meet the rapidly increasing demand for behavioral health crisis intervention, at a time when incidents of police shooting and killing people in mental health crisis have become painfully familiar.
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.
Mental health courts have been touted as a means to help reduce the flow of people with mental illness into jails and prisons. But the specialized diversion programs can struggle to live up to that promise, and some say they’re a bad investment.
The Social Security Administration is reclaiming billions of dollars in alleged overpayments from some of the nation's poorest and most vulnerable, leaving some people homeless or struggling to stay in housing, beneficiaries and advocates say.
As opioid settlement dollars land in government coffers, a swarm of businesses are positioning themselves to profit from the windfall. But will their potential gains come at the expense of the settlements’ intended purpose — to remediate the effects of the opioid epidemic?
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.
A majority of medical schools now offer dual MD-MBA programs, compared with just a quarter two decades ago. The number of medical students seeking a business degree has nearly tripled. This begs the question: Whom will these doctors serve more, patients or shareholders?
The private insurance market has proved wildly inadequate in providing financial security for millions of older Americans, in part by underestimating how many policyholders would use their coverage.
A new study finds that young people who have been injured by firearms are more prone to psychiatric diagnoses and developing a substance use disorder than kids who have not been shot — and their families also suffer long-term ill effects.
Medicare is expanding access to mental health counselors and marriage and family therapists come Jan. 1. But the belief that seniors who suffer from mental health problems should just grin and bear it remains a troubling barrier to care.
More than 16 million Americans who buy their own health insurance through state and federal marketplaces have until Jan. 15 to compare prices, change their coverage, or enroll for the first time.
This month, the federal government started paying for treatments delivered outside hospitals and clinics, expanding funding for “street medicine” teams that treat homeless patients. California led the way on the change, which could help sick and vulnerable patients get healthy, sober, and, in some cases, into housing.
Narcan is available without a prescription. Addiction treatment experts hope this move will increase access to the medication, which can reverse opioid overdoses. But hurdles remain: cost and stigma.
Lawmakers are faulting the Social Security Administration for issuing billions of dollars of payments that beneficiaries weren’t entitled to receive — and then demanding the money back — in the wake of an investigation by KFF Health News and Cox Media Group.
Beneficiaries in five states described what happened when they received letters calling on them to return overpayments that can reach tens of thousands of dollars or more.
The medical dangers of heat are real. But people often ignore public heat alerts or don't realize how vulnerable they are. A new alert system prompts clinicians to talk about heat with patients.
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