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Artificial intelligence products with lifelike voices are being marketed to schedule or cancel medical visits, refill prescriptions, and help triage patients. Soon, many patients might initiate contact with the health system by speaking not with a human but with AI.
Late last year, South Carolina Medicaid approved a class of medications known as GLP-1s to treat obesity, placing it among the few state programs covering these effective but expensive drugs. But access remains limited, even for patients covered by Medicaid, because of stringent prerequisites that must be satisfied before starting the drug.
Fresh studies expose a gap in the FDA’s assessments of foods: Widely used additives could damage the mix of bacteria in your gut, causing health problems.
One thing experts agree on: The damage from the funding cuts will be varied and immense.
More than 100 rural hospitals have stopped delivering babies since 2021, including a South Dakota hospital that serves small towns, farming communities, and a Native American reservation. Patients there now travel at least an hour to give birth.
While Big Pharma seems ready to weather the tariff storm, independent pharmacists and makers of generic drugs — which account for 90% of U.S. prescriptions — see trouble ahead for patients.
More Californians are getting mental health or substance use disorder treatment online or over the phone than in person, according to a KFF Health News analysis of UCLA’s latest California Health Interview Survey. But the telehealth experience isn’t always positive.
Apache tribal members are already feeling psychological and spiritual harm as the Trump administration moves to fast-track a deal to turn their sacred land of Oak Flat, Arizona, into a copper mine.
Two stories from Washington, D.C., give listeners a sense of what changes the Trump administration has been making to health policy, with KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner and Arthur Allen.
Republicans, on the hunt for spending cuts, are eyeing a special kind of Medicaid tax that nearly every state uses to boost funding for hospitals, nursing homes, and other providers.
In recent weeks, Social Security has been plagued by problems related to technology, system errors, and even the marking of living people as dead.
Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s HHS said an enormous, noncompetitive flu vaccine development grant to two favored NIH leaders would ensure “transparency, effectiveness, and comprehensive preparedness.” But their vaccine is in early stages, relies on old technology, and is just one of scores of similar efforts.
At least some workers who process public records in response to Freedom of Information Act requests have been reinstated, agency employees say.
This fall, the U.S. Government Accountability Office expects to release a report on how much it costs to run Georgia Pathways to Coverage — the country’s only active Medicaid work requirement program — as other states and Congress consider similar programs.
The state has in recent years embraced several initiatives recommended in an influential health care workforce report, including alternative payment arrangements for primary care doctors to earn more. Despite increasing residency programs, student debt forgiveness, and tuition-free medical school, California is unlikely to meet patient demand, observers say.
In 9 of 10 cases, a person in cardiac arrest will die because help doesn’t arrive quickly enough. With CPR and, possibly, a shock from an automated external defibrillator, survival odds double. But Americans lack confidence and know-how to handle these interventions.
Breakups between health providers and Advantage plans are increasingly common. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has allowed whole groups of patients to leave their plans.
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In many cases, the money flowed to addiction recovery programs that help rebuild lives by driving people to medical appointments and court hearings, crafting résumés and training them for new jobs, finding them housing, and helping them build social connections unrelated to drugs.
In the wake of an executive order by President Donald Trump opposing gender-affirming surgeries for minors, hospitals are pausing procedures — even those already scheduled. Families fear the eventual loss of all gender-affirming care for their transgender kids.
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