Latest KFF Health News Stories
How Group Health Is Holding Costs Down: A KHN Interview With CEO Scott Armstrong
One of the lesser-known provisions of the new health law calls for federal loans to help fund health cooperatives. Scott Armstrong, the CEO of Group Health, says that co-ops can improve patient care and contain costs.
The nation’s leaders must slog through the complexities and ideologies of the current political landscape in order to craft solutions that will shore up the American safety net and protect its weakest citizens.
Some Doctors Dispute Benefits Of Early Diagnosis
Dartmouth researchers argue that ordering screenings for people with no symptoms too often leads to costly treatment for people who would likely never have gotten sick.
Blumenthal To Leave Obama’s Health IT Office
Harvard researcher paved the way for a $27 billion effort to push doctors and hospitals into the digital age.
Should Infertility Treatment Be Considered Essential?
Currently, policies provide only skimpy coverage for these services, which are often expensive. But this is an issue that regulators are wrestling with as they determine what conditions should be included in plans under the health law.
Abandoning and replacing the American Medical Association’s Relative Value Scale Update Committee — a panel that offers recommendations to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on physician reimbursement policy — would be an important first step toward re-stabilizing the nation’s primary care physician supply the U.S. health system.
Insurer and Hospital System: Why Can’t We Be Friends?
In North Carolina’s Research Triangle, two forces so often at odds — a major health care system and the region’s dominant insurer — announced that they would work together in the interest of better, cheaper medicine.
Hospitals Try New Approaches To Curb Emergency Department Crowding
Officials are shaking up procedures with some hospitals abandoning traditional ER beds and cubicles, shifting patients more quickly to medical units and taking over underused hospital space.
Primary Care A Compelling Mission For Harvard Medical School Student
As part of an occasional series, First Person, Ishani Ganguli writes that medical school students like her have the opportunity to help the health care system by choosing to become primary care physicians.
Digital Divide Threatens Health Care
In a story from The Center For Public Integrity, experts worry low-income clinics cannot afford the electronic health records that others can and will fall behind as a result, potentially missing the Obama administration’s goal of going digital in the next five years.
Insurers Clash With Hospitals And Doctors Over ACO Rules
Powerful interests that are supposed to create and run the health law’s new accountable care organizations are fighting over what the rules governing ACOs should say.
The Avastin Decision: A Rational Decision Or Rationing?
Sometimes the noisiest voices in the health overhaul debate don’t make a good faith effort to acknowledge important scientific or policy-oriented nuances in their arguments. It’s happening again in the wake of a controversial regulatory ruling about a cancer drug.
Health Care Battles To Surge Anew In 2011: Jenny Gold
KHN reporters preview some of the big issues coming this year: KHN reporter Jenny Gold says marketplace consolidations, especially with a great number of hospital mergers, could change the health care landscape.
Health Care Battles To Surge Anew In 2011: Jordan Rau
KHN reporters preview some of the big issues coming this year: KHN correspondent Jordan Rau says doctors and hospitals could come under increased scrutiny.
More Patients Making Appointments Online As Doctors Embrace Web
A web-based company called ZocDoc is piggybacking on doctors’ increasing willingness to let patients make appointments online.
Nine Ways The New Health Law May Affect You in 2011
In 2011 many new provisions of the health law kick in, providing benefits for many and potential new costs for some others.
Seniors May Not Rush In For Medicare Wellness Exams
The new health law adds coverage for an annual checkup, but in the past beneficiaries have not shown great interest in the “wellness exams” offered when they first qualify for Medicare.
Insuring Your Health: Looking At The Changes 2011 Brings
Michelle Andrews speaks with KFF’s Jackie Judd about changes in lifetime insurance limits, keeping children insured, the new high-risk pools, rising health costs and consumers’ misperceptions about the overhaul.
Study Fuels Debate Over Widespread HIV Testing And Its Cost
The wider use of a cheap blood test could help cut the number of new HIV infections by more than 80,000 in the United States over 20 years, but the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force hasn’t come around to that view.
No Outrage, No Story In Dead Patients
A good story involves drama and conflict. It’s a great story when a federal judge with Republican ties nixing the president’s achievement in ensuring access to care for all. But a couple of reports about hospitals avoidably killing tens of thousands of Americans once they have that access to care apparently has little, if any, drama at all.
