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The Florida governor’s order said schools couldn’t mandate that students wear masks and that the state could deny funding to school districts that didn’t comply.
As the nation confronts the delta variant, many consumers are again facing delays getting tested. The problem appears most acute in the South and Midwest, where new infections are growing the fastest.
Pharmacy benefit managers have curtailed in-person audits of pharmacy claims during the pandemic, switching to virtual audits done by computer. That has markedly increased the number of claims they can review — and the chances for payment denials — squeezing pharmacies and bringing in more cash for the benefit companies.
Community Health Systems, a large, for profit hospital chain, shrank from more than 200 to 84 facilities. It is continuing to sue patients for hospitals that now exist as little more than legal entities.
Restrictive abortion regulations enacted across the South require women to drive across state lines to find safe services. With the U.S. Supreme Court set to hear a challenge to Roe v. Wade, abortion rights defenders say long drives and wait times could become the norm across much of America.
The Supreme Court, come autumn, will consider a Mississippi law that bans nearly all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. That’s hardly the most restrictive abortion law passed in the South. How did anti-abortion views become concentrated in the South?
Big Bend Regional Medical Center, the only hospital in a sparsely populated region of West Texas, announced that because of a nursing shortage its labor and delivery unit must close for days at a time and patients must go instead to a hospital an hour away.
The summer that promised to let Americans resume a relatively normal life is turning into another summer of anxiety and face masks, as the delta variant drives covid caseloads up in all 50 states. Meanwhile, the Americans with Disabilities Act turns 35, and the Missouri Supreme Court orders the state to expand Medicaid after all. Mary Ellen McIntire of CQ Roll Call, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News and Rachana Pradhan of KHN join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also, Rovner interviews KHN’s Samantha Young, who reported and wrote the latest KHN-NPR “Bill of the Month” episode about an Olympic-level athlete with an Olympic-size medical bill.
Only severely injured patients are supposed to be billed for “trauma team alert” fees that can exceed $50,000.
Thousands of schools have spent millions of federal covid relief dollars snapping up air cleaning technology that claims to inactivate covid-19. But the devices fall into a regulatory gap.
Vermont and Massachusetts lead the nation, with more than 70% of adults having had at least one dose of a covid-19 vaccine. Southern states like Tennessee lag far behind.
Black and Hispanic students have lost up to 12 months of learning, which could lead to lower incomes and shorter, sicker lives.
The pandemic will undermine Americans' health for years. Even those not infected by the coronavirus could suffer health problems related to poverty, job loss, eviction — or all of the above.
In Texas’ border communities, which are overwhelmingly Hispanic, covid-19 death rates for people under age 65 were double those in the rest of the state and three times the national average. They were also significantly higher than rates in New Mexico border areas.
HCA charges patients an “activation fee” of up to $50,000 for trauma teams at centers located in half its 179 hospitals — and they often don’t need trauma care, an analysis of insurance claims data shows.
Community health centers were born in the 1960s to reach low-income communities. But some rural health experts say federally qualified health centers were a missing piece in achieving early equity in the vaccine rollout.
Besides shared culture and values, a Black physician can offer Black patients a sense of safety, validation and trust. By contrast, the impact of systemic racism can show up starkly in childbirth. Black women are three times as likely to die after giving birth as white women in the United States.
More than 5 million Americans lost a loved one to covid, and the ripple effects could lead to serious illness down the road.
Kaiser Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.
Covid-19 tore through Mississippi’s Black population in the pandemic’s early days, but community efforts slowed the rate. Now health officials and community leaders aim to replicate the success as they dole out vaccines.
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