Latest KFF Health News Stories
Terrifying Brush With Death Drives Doctor To Fight For Patients
Dr. Rana Awdish was completing a fellowship in critical care when she became critically ill herself. Now, she helps other doctors understand the patient’s perspective.
Wrecked And Retching: Obscure Vomiting Illness Linked To Long-Term Pot Use
Emergency room doctors are seeing a growing number of marijuana users with a mysterious condition that causes extreme vomiting and abdominal pain.
Frail Patients Losing Access To Dental House Calls
Dental hygienists who treat frail and elderly residents in nursing homes and other facilities are dropping out of California’s publicly funded dental program for the poor because of recent changes that cut their pay and create more administrative hurdles.
Care Suffers As More Nursing Homes Feed Money Into Corporate Webs
Increasingly, owners of nursing homes outsource services to companies in which they also have financial interest or control. That allows the nursing homes to claim to be in the red while owners reap hidden profits.
Trump Administration Relaxes Financial Penalties Against Nursing Homes
Medicare is discouraging regional offices from levying fines for “one-time mistakes” or from using daily fines that seek to put pressure on nursing homes to make changes.
Sickle Cell Patients, Families And Doctors Face A ‘Fight For Everything’
Premature death, a dearth of treatments, mistreatment in emergency rooms and a woeful lack of funding are just a few of the problems confronting people with sickle cell disease.
Children’s Insurance, Other Health Programs Funded — For Now — In Bill
In a short-term spending bill, Congress extends money to the Children’s Health Insurance Program through March.
FDA Chief Says He’s Open To Rethinking Incentives On Orphan Drugs
The FDA’s Scott Gottlieb says the agency is focused on the big picture, and he wants to know why pharma churns out drugs for some rare diseases but not for others.
Arthritis Drugs Show How U.S. Drug Prices Defy Economics
Drugs that treat rheumatoid arthritis started out costing about $10,000 a year. Ten years later, they list for more than $40,000.
Infection Lapses Rampant In Nursing Homes But Punishment Is Rare
A Kaiser Health News analysis of federal inspection records shows that nursing home inspectors labeled mistakes in infection control as serious for only 161 of the 12,056 homes they have cited since 2014.
Bonus Tucked Into GOP Tax Bill For Those Aiming To Deduct Medical Expenses
The House sought to eliminate the tax deduction, generally used by people with serious illnesses or those who need long-term care services but it was eventually restored in the final bill — and expanded.
Biosimilars, Biologics And New Legal Challenges For RA Treatments
As biosimilar products reach the market and rival more established RA treatments, the players are exploring legal challenges involving antitrust and anti-competitive behavior.
751 Hospitals Hit With Safety Penalties For 2018: Data Table
The federal government has cut payments to hospitals with high rates of patient injuries this year. Those hospitals will lose 1 percent of Medicare payments over the federal fiscal year, which runs from October through September. Maryland hospitals are exempted from penalties because that state has a separate payment arrangement with Medicare. Below are the […]
Medicare Penalizes Group Of 751 Hospitals For Patient Injuries
Each hospital will have its payments reduced by 1 percent for the year.
Despite Compressed Sign-Up Period, ACA Enrollment Nearly Matches Last Year’s
HHS announces that 8.8 million people signed up for coverage through the federal insurance marketplace.
El largo adiós: cómo enfrentar la enfermedad prolongada de un ser querido
Una enfermedad prolongada puede generar el duelo de un ser querido, mucho antes del fallecimiento. Consejos para sobrellevar esta etapa con menos dolor.
Podcast: ‘What The Health?’ 2017: The Year In Health Policy
In this episode of “What The Health?” Julie Rovner of Kaiser Health News, Joanne Kenen of Politico, Alice Ollstein of Talking Points Memo and Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times discuss this week’s news, including health issues in the just-passed tax bill and a look back on the year in health policy.
Near Incineration Of Psychiatric Hospital Highlights Gaping Need For More Beds
Fire almost destroyed one of two acute care facilities in Ventura County — wiping out most of the region’s inpatient capacity. In California and nationally, such hospitals are strained by demand — and disasters.
Unregulated Herpes Experiments Expose ‘Black Hole’ Of Accountability
Controversial research methods by university researcher unlikely to prompt federal response or institutional change, experts say.
Arizona Declares Opioid Emergency, But Signals Are Mixed Over Best Response
Arizona is one of a few states that have declared the opioid epidemic a public health emergency. There’s no uniformity in what that means from state to state, though, and even within Arizona, there’s a wide divergence of opinion on how best to tackle the problem.