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Diagnosed with aggressive leukemia on a Western trip, a young man thought his insurance would cover an air ambulance ride home to North Carolina. Instead, questions about medical necessity left him with an astronomical bill.
The No Surprises Act offers protection from many surprise medical bills — but that protection may be only as good as a patient’s knowledge of the law and ability to make sure it’s enforced. Here’s what you need to know.
The insurance company said that the birth of the Bull family’s twins was not an emergency and that NICU care was “not medically necessary.” The family’s experience with a huge bill sent to collections happened in 2020, but it exposes a hole in the new No Surprises law that took effect Jan. 1.
At Salem Health Salem Hospital in Oregon, the omicron surge is still swamping health care workers. They are ground down emotionally but keep showing up for their patients.
A St. Louis-area toddler burned his hand on the stove, and his mom took him to the ER on the advice of her pediatrician. He wasn’t seen by a doctor, and the dressing on the wound wasn’t changed. The bill was more than a thousand dollars.
As omicron sweeps the country, many hospitals are dealing with a flood of people hospitalized with covid — including those primarily admitted for other reasons. While often milder cases, so-called incidental covid infections still drain the beleaguered health care workforce and can put them and other patients at higher risk for contracting covid.
Years in the making, a new federal law against surprise medical bills took effect Jan. 1.
Legislative crackdowns on out-of-network bills haven’t kept specialists from hitting patients with unexpected charges running into thousands of dollars.
Rural areas such as Echols County, Georgia, have high levels of uninsured people and profound physician shortages that compound the lack of health care options, especially in the 12 states that have not expanded Medicaid.
Gunnison paramedics cover the largest response zone in Colorado. Because of covid and the lack of nearby hospital beds, patients increasingly are transported long distances, leaving few ambulances to respond to emergencies.
A record number of hospitals closed in rural America last year. For the residents of Cuthbert, Georgia, the loss has meant many problems, including delayed care for emergencies that can turn deadly.
With few options for health care in their rural community, a Tennessee couple’s experience with one outrageous bill could have led to a deadly decision the next time they needed help.
Certain patients who couldn't get in to see a doctor earlier in the pandemic, or were avoiding the covid risks inside hospitals, have become too sick to stay away. Many ERs now struggle to cope with an onslaught of demand.
The covid vaccination rate for first responders in the state is more than 95%. But it's lower in more rural areas, where ambulance crews can't function if even just a few people quit.
California Assembly member Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, who authored legislation to create and fund the state’s new 988 phone line for mental health emergencies, spoke with KHN about the effort and what more will be needed to create a full-fledged response network for people experiencing mental health crises.
Unvaccinated people are filling intensive care beds and dying of covid in record numbers in Tennessee and other Southern states. Many tell their nurses and doctors they regret the decision not to get the vaccine when they could.
Televisits took off during the worst days of the pandemic, but states are now rolling back the temporary rules that facilitated them. That’s adding fuel to debates about states’ authority over medical licensing.
Despite widespread consensus on the importance of addiction treatment in the ER, many hospitals fail to screen for substance use, offer medications to treat opioid use disorder or connect patients to follow-up care. But some are working to change that.
A Long Island, New York, school system has partnered with a hospital to create a mental health safety net for children. The heart of the initiative is a new behavioral health center, which the hospital opened to help children avoid unnecessary hospitalization.
The Biden administration is weighing how to treat urgent care clinics as part of broad regulations banning surprise, out-of-network medical bills. At the heart of the matter: What counts as an emergency?
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