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Being a caregiver can start long before you go to a doctor appointment with a loved one or move your parents into your house. The HealthQ team explores how embracing the role matters — and how the recognition and support that come next can ease a difficult season of life.
Medicare is testing the use of artificial intelligence to preapprove several healthcare services. Federal health officials say prior authorization can help reduce fraud and contain costs. But doctors and patients describe the trial as “horrendous” and full of red tape so far.
“Government has to intervene, because healthcare is run like an unregulated utility,” Indiana’s GOP governor says of the state’s effort to regulate hospital prices.
Amid advancements in treatment and screening, more Americans are surviving the disease. But many are left with psychological scars, such as lingering anxiety and depression.
The Trump administration finalized a rule that embraces new types of Obamacare coverage, including 30% higher out-of-pocket costs for some plans, and a more novel approach that allows insurers to offer coverage without set networks of doctors and hospitals.
The Trump administration has laid out what millions of Americans on Medicaid must do to prove they’re working or completing other activities. Health policy researchers and consumer advocates say there are some important takeaways.
Despite widespread support in polls for legalizing aid in dying, the number of people who go through with the practice remains very small.
To collect and scrutinize millions of Americans’ health data, U.S. health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. aims to work with state organizations that help health systems share medical records. In Nebraska, millions in federal dollars has flowed into one nonprofit cooperating with Kennedy’s project.
Health experts and advocates for low-income people say federal rules implementing President Donald Trump’s new Medicaid work requirements upend months of work by state governments to prepare the computer systems that determine who’s eligible for benefits.
The state had high rates of parents not vaccinating their children, so it started making them attend vaccine education sessions to opt out their kids. It seemed to work. Then things got ugly.
Immigrant detainees have told courts across the nation that detention officials have failed to treat or stabilize their conditions, from pregnancy to prostate cancer, suggesting that systemic lapses in care extend well beyond record deaths in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.
Congress' decision not to extend enhanced marketplace tax credits has boosted the appeal of alternative health coverage with lower monthly premiums. Consumer advocates dismiss the plans as "junk insurance,” while proponents say patients need alternatives to pricey marketplace options.
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A Minnesota Star Tribune-KFF Health News investigation found charity care at hospitals in the state is offered at low and arbitrary levels, prompting Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to say, “There is more work in front of us.”
Several states have required their health agencies to take on another job: verifying immigration status among Medicaid recipients and reporting them to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. North Carolina is the latest to pass such a law, and experts expect more to follow.
Some states bar professional midwives from attending home births if they don’t have a nursing license. Their advocates say laws to allow midwife licensing would make home birth safer and more accessible, plus help address a maternity care shortage.
He tested robotic hands on a heart surgery patient and chewed on microgreens in Ohio, but Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. couldn’t dodge questions about the Trump administration’s more controversial policies.
A Minnesota Star Tribune-KFF Health News investigation of hospital data and charity care programs shows most Minnesota hospitals provide little financial aid to patients and often make assistance difficult to get.
Hundreds of hospitals nationwide are bracing for Medicaid cuts as a result of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Some state lawmakers are eyeing loans and other forms of financial aid to distressed hospitals in rural and urban areas, as healthcare providers warn of cuts to critical services and scramble for funding.
A KFF survey of state Medicaid officials offers insight into lingering uncertainty and differing plans for work requirement implementation as the Jan. 1 deadline approaches.
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