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Families are weighing the challenges of providing home care with the isolation or potential danger of leaving folks in senior housing or long-term care.
Under pressure, the federal government announced it will let surgery centers, hotels and even college dorms serve as hospitals to treat an overflow of patients.
Congress retreats on long-planned cost cuts to benefit the health care industry with a grab bag full of incentives.
Revenue is way down for primary care, specialty physicians and some hospitals as patients avoid non-urgent visits. Practices small and large are doling out layoffs and furloughs to staff.
Hospitals need to clear out patients who no longer need acute care. But nursing homes are alarmed at the prospect of taking patients who may have the coronavirus.
A common complaint about the testing process is the long turnaround time for results.
People in recovery from drug or alcohol addiction have to weather a new storm of depression, anxiety and isolation during the pandemic, just as the social supports of Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs move online.
Hundreds of thousands of people will be able to appeal hospitals’ decisions to classify them as “observation care” patients instead of inpatients, under a ruling last week in a class action suit.
As President Donald Trump called the nation “in good shape” to handle COVID-19, a cache of emails released by officials in Washington state show that top public health authorities feared gear shortages and doctor safety in the early epicenter of sickness and deaths.
A coalition of anesthesiologists wants to repurpose the country’s more than 5,000 surgery centers to serve as emergency overflow amid the coronavirus pandemic. The centers have trained medical staff largely sitting idle, anesthesia machines that could be turned into ventilators, and empty medical space. But obstacles such as federal payment rules, logistics and some skepticism are getting in the way.
With coronavirus cases growing at a faster rate than anticipated, hospitals are scrambling to boost medical supplies and beds.
Newsletter editor Brianna Labuskes wades through hundreds of health care policy stories each week, so you don’t have to.
To weather uncertain times, it’s important to acknowledge and grieve losses — even if they seem small in the scheme of the global pandemic, psychologists and grief experts say.
The legislation scheduled to go before the House for a vote Friday provides nearly $200 billion in aid for hospitals. That includes payments for expenses or lost revenues from the coronavirus pandemic, interest-free loans and changes in Medicare reimbursements.
As they prepare for an onslaught of coronavirus patients, health officials in New York and other states urge retired medical professionals to rejoin the ranks.
Doctors sent an impassioned, desperate letter to Congress describing the lack of protective equipment across the country — from masks to respirators to gowns to goggles. They’re using equipment from construction sites and home-repair stores or wearing the same mask from patient to patient. And they worry about what exposure without sufficient protection means for them and their families.
U.S. pandemic planning envisioned the possibility of using CPAP machines for milder cases of COVID-19 when ventilators are in short supply. But evidence suggests that the machines, commonly used by people with sleep apnea, can aerosolize and possibly spread the virus. That leaves hospitals with few good alternatives if the demand for ventilators exceeds the supply.
Millions of Americans are suddenly seeking care by connecting with a doctor electronically. Helping drive that trend, medical providers can now charge as much as they would for an office visit.
Many of the nation’s safety-net clinics for low-income patients are having to turn their model of care upside down overnight to deal with the realities of the pandemic — a challenge both financially and logistically. Federal funding is on the way.
Families worry that overwhelmed hospitals won’t be able to provide palliative care for loved ones stricken with COVID-19.
