Community Health Workers Spread Across the US, Even in Rural Areas
Community health workers are increasingly common in rural areas, where they help patients overcome barriers to accessing care and staying healthy.
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Community health workers are increasingly common in rural areas, where they help patients overcome barriers to accessing care and staying healthy.
The Indian Health Service has a program that can pay for outside appointments when patients need care not offered at agency-funded sites. Critics say money shortages, complex rules, and administrative fumbles often block access, however.
The end of pandemic-era Medicaid coverage protections coincided with changes in more than a dozen states to expand coverage for lower-income people, including children, pregnant women, and the incarcerated.
For decades, state and federal agencies have restricted or delayed tribes and tribal epidemiology centers from accessing public health data, a blackout that leaves health workers in Native American communities cobbling together information to guide their work, including tracking devastating disease outbreaks.
Even as part of a popular South Dakota tourist attraction, an independent pharmacy serving locals, remote ranchers, and sightseers struggles with staffing and insurer payments.
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.
A disconnect between two federal programs meant to help keep hospitals afloat discourages struggling rural facilities from accepting the aid.
Dairy farmers and veterinarians in northern Texas furiously investigated a mysterious illness among cattle before the government got involved. Their observations are telling.
Nurse practitioners have been viewed as a key to addressing the shortage of primary care physicians. But data suggests that, just like doctors, they are increasingly drawn to better-paying specialties.
Social services, such as parenting classes and economic development programs, can help increase the life spans of Native Americans, some health experts say. But insurers don’t always cover these services.
With an end-of-year deadline and a presidential election approaching, payment rules that fueled rapid expansion of telehealth in the United States face a last-minute congressional decision.
With U.S. syphilis rates climbing to the worst level in seven decades, public health experts and the federal Indian Health Service are scrambling to detect and treat the disease in Native American communities, where babies are infected at a higher rate than in any other demographic.
As money flows to abortion rights initiatives in states, some donors focus on where anger over the "Dobbs" ruling could propel voter turnout and spur Democratic victories up and down the ballot, including in key Senate races and the White House.
A 25-year-old state Supreme Court ruling protects abortion rights in conservative Montana. That hasn’t stopped Republicans and anti-abortion advocates from trying to institute a ban.
The presidential election is likely to turn on the simple question of whether Americans want Donald Trump back in the White House. But health care tops the list of household financial worries for adults from both parties.
South Dakota allows doctors to terminate a pregnancy only if a patient’s life is in jeopardy. Lawmakers say a government-created video would clarify what that exception actually means.
The expansion of Catholic hospitals nationwide leaves patients at the mercy of the church’s religious directives, which are often at odds with accepted medical standards.
Native Americans die by suicide at a higher rate than any other racial or ethnic group, yet research into effective and culturally appropriate interventions is uncommon.
A rural South Dakota medic said using an ambulance video system to communicate with a doctor gave him peace of mind as he treated a patient who was seriously injured when gored by a bison.
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