Latest KFF Health News Stories
Readers Face Multiple Dilemmas About Insurance Coverage, Costs
“Insuring Your Health” columnist Michelle Andrews answers questions from readers, including someone wondering about coverage if you’ve been drinking, talking with your insurer about a family member’s bill and preventive colonscopies.
As Hospitals Push ERs, States’ Medicaid Budgets Pressured
With their budgets squeezed, states are trying to reduce unnecessary ER visits by patients in Medicaid. But officials complain that their efforts are sometimes hampered by hospitals’ aggressive marketing of ERs to increase admissions and profits.
Hospitals Promoting Bargain CT Scans For Smokers
Landmark study shows annual scans reduce lung cancer deaths by 20 percent, but expert groups are not yet recommending such discounted testing because of concerns over complications and overall health costs.
A Need For Health Care Reform: Cancer Care Costs And The Patient Perspective
The health reform discussion has been focusing on the systemic impact of health care costs, but somewhere in the bar graphs detailing trillions of dollars in projected spending, the daily experience of the cancer patient has been lost.
Research shows they daily experience of cancer patients often includes a heavy financial burden that impacts both their quality of life and satisfaction with care. Meanwhile, other data reflects the high-stakes position of oncologists, who often are the midpoint between cancer therapies and their costs.
Oncologists In The Middle: Cancer Therapies And Cancer Costs
Oncologists, trained to consider the clinical implications of their decisions, are unavoidably placed in the middle of an economic predicament. To what extent should economic considerations be a factor in prescribing decisions? In the world of medicine, this dilemma is not peculiar to cancer, but with no other disease are the stakes as frequently or as starkly presented.
‘Project Lifesaver’ Tracks Wandering Seniors With Dementia
Aiken’s Public Safety Department uses GPS bracelets and anklets from Project Lifesaver International, a nonprofit organization, to track dementia patients who wander.
Getting Up Close And Personal With Emergency Care, Canadian Style
Health care columnist’s bike accident lands her in an emergency room where she finds interesting differences from U.S. treatment.
Medicare Prepares Rule To Penalize Hospitals With High Readmission Rates
The federal health care program also wants to pay less to hospitals with higher-than-average costs for patient care.
Health Industry Could Feel Pinch, Then Pain From Default
Within a few weeks of a shutdown of Medicare and Medicaid money, health care providers could be in financial trouble. No one knows how to plan for it.
The Questionable Lure Of Free Long-Term Care Placement Services (Guest Opinion)
Internet long-term care placement services are the cyberspace era’s quick fix solution for many Americans seeking non-nursing home institutional care for their aging parents or relatives. But their expertise in navigating this bewildering world of assisted living is, at best, a hit-or-miss proposition.
New Emergency Care Programs Focus On Quality-Of-Life Issues
With training, hospital emergency department staff members can enhance their skills in pain and symptom management and improve their communication skills.
Head Of Major HMO Sees Openings For Accountable Care Organizations-The KHN Interview
Kaiser Permanente’s George Halvorson says that despite the complexity of ACO regs, some versions have the potential to save money and improve care.
Hospitals Look For Disney Magic To Make Customers Happy
Medicare payments soon will partly reflect patient satisfaction, so hospitals are seeking advice from the entertainment kingdom.
HHS Sets Rules For Consumer-Controlled Health Plans
Supporters hope the nonprofit co-ops will increase competition and cut prices.
AARP Finds Toll On Family Caregivers Is ‘Huge’
A new study by the AARP estimates that for the more than 40 million Americans caring for an elderly or disabled loved one, the value of their work is $450 billion a year.
It’s Not Just The Money: Cost Control In Cancer Care (Guest Opinion)
Health reform raises deep questions about the size and scope of government, about progressive taxation, about the individual mandate and more. It’s easy to forget that cost control will be a huge challenge, no matter how these ideological matters are resolved. Finding the right combination of humanity and restraint will be particularly hard in addressing life-threatening or life-ending illness.
Alan D. Aviles, the longest serving president of the nation’s largest municipal health system, discusses his efforts to stabilize HHC’s finances in the face of dramatic budgetary challenges — including the health law’s reduction in special funding for safety net hospitals and state efforts to reduce Medicaid costs.
A New Health Care? Many Doctors Skeptical of New Technology
Video: Like many physicians across the country, Cleveland doctor Conrad Lindes is worried about one of the government’s latest overhauls to the medical system: digitizing health care. He believes the government is forcing doctors to make a change to electronic medical records before they — and the technology — are ready.
Doctors In Small Practices Slow To Dump Paper Records
Despite carrots and sticks from the federal government, some physicians are leery about moving to electronic health records.
