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Shortly after birth, babies are pricked in the heel so their blood can be tested for life-threatening conditions. States generally save leftover blood from those samples, and parents and privacy experts are concerned that information could be used without consent years later.
California and New York would be the first states to require anyone under 18 to obtain prescriptions to purchase over-the-counter weight loss products, which some research has linked to eating disorders.
Iowa, under federal pressure to improve care for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities, is set to join 45 other states that have closed most or all of their state institutions for such residents.
The codes used by U.S. medical providers to bill insurers haven’t caught up to the needs of trans patients or even international standards. Consequently, doctors are forced to get creative with what codes they use, or patients spend hours fighting big out-of-pocket bills.
Medicare and Medicaid pay “look-alike” health centers significantly more than hospitals for treating patients, and converting or creating clinics can help hospitals reduce their expenses.
A two-year congressional investigation has identified troubling lapses in the nation’s organ transplant system. Blood types mismatched, diseased organs transplanted anyway, and — most often — organs lost or damaged before they can save a life.
For decades, the U.S. medical establishment has adhered to a legally recognized standard for brain death, one embraced by most states. Why is a uniform clinical standard for the inception of human life proving so elusive?
Three siblings were in the same car wreck, but their ambulance bills were very different.
People in jails and prisons are particularly vulnerable to the fallout from the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade.
Abortion access is shaping races for legal office across the country, from local district attorneys to attorneys general. But it’s also highlighting the boundaries of their offices.
Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an Indiana OB-GYN, was publicly vilified for providing an abortion to a 10-year-old rape victim. That treatment and new abortion restrictions in the state have left some medical residents reconsidering whether they will practice in Indiana.
Know-how gained through the covid pandemic is seeping into other public health areas. But in a nation that has chronically underfunded its public health system, it’s hard to know which changes will stick.
When Roe v. Wade was overturned, Wisconsin banned nearly all abortions. To preserve access, now more than a dozen providers are traveling across the border into Illinois to treat patients. This partnership between Planned Parenthood organizations could be a model as dozens of abortion clinics close across the U.S.
The U.S. Labor Department investigates Noble Health after former employees of its shuttered Missouri hospitals say the private equity-backed owner took money from their paychecks and then failed to fund their insurance coverage.
Wastewater testing has proved a reliable early alarm bell for covid outbreaks. U.S. researchers are now adapting the approach to track the explosive spread of monkeypox.
The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota allows people to buy and use recreational marijuana but not alcohol. Some tribal citizens say cannabis is safer than alcohol, meth, and opioids — which have wreaked havoc on the state’s Indigenous communities.
People whose brains have been injured by concussions, traumatic accidents, strokes, or neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson’s disease can benefit from targeted therapy. Experts also employ therapies for long-covid patients with memory and language problems.
In the first official test vote since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, voters in Kansas’ primary said in no uncertain terms they want to keep a right to abortion in their state constitution. Meanwhile, the Senate is still working to reach a vote before summer recess on its health care-climate-tax measure, but progress is slow. Tami Luhby of CNN, Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call, and Rachel Cohrs of Stat join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews KHN’s Bram Sable-Smith, who wrote the latest KHN-NPR “Bill of the Month” installment about a very expensive ambulance trip.
When criminal suspects are deemed too mentally ill to go through the court process and their charges are dropped, they can be left without stabilizing treatment — and sometimes end up being charged with additional crimes.
Music festival promoters are allowing distribution of overdose reversal medication as fentanyl deaths continue to surge. But nonprofits and volunteers are often left to do the work, and more controversial forms of harm reduction aren’t openly allowed.
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