Latest KFF Health News Stories
Video: Understanding The New HHS ACO Rule
KHN’s Jordan Rau explains how the Obama administration envisions accountable care organizations, which are designed to help hospitals and doctors form new networks to coordinate patients’ care. Officials estimate that the ACOs could save Medicare up to $960 million over three years. ACOs are a feature of the new health law.
Demand Grows For Palliative Care
Seriously ill patients, even when not facing death, can benefit from better pain and symptom management, care coordination and help setting goals from specially trained teams, which typically include a doctor, a nurse, a social worker and a spiritual counselor.
Who Should Get Pediatric Palliative Care?
Pediatric palliative care is for children who are living with very serious and complex illness. They do not have to have a life expectancy of only a few months.
Palliative care takes an interdisciplinary approach similar to hospice
Health Care Expands For Ex-Offenders In California
The health overhaul law is spurring a major expansion of programs that will benefit ex-offenders and other indigent people in California beginning this summer.
Special Needs, Special Care: Palliative Care Helps Families Navigate Unfamiliar Medical Terrain
Dr. Joanne Wolfe, of Children’s Hospital Boston, talks about her approach to helping children live with serious or life-limiting illness and how many need an interdisciplinary approach to care to make sense of the maze of medical treatment.
Palliative Care Can Help Children And Families Navigate Bewildering Medical Terrain
About 1.3 million children live with serious or life-limiting illness and many need an interdisciplinary approach to care to help their families make sense of the maze of medical treatment.
Housing Bust Hurts County Health Efforts
As property tax revenues have fallen, many cities and counties have been forced to cut health services.
For People With Mental Health Issues, Care Is Often Elusive
The wait for an appointment with an expert can be long, and psychiatrists especially are in short supply. Psychologists seek to expand their role by prescribing drugs.
Maternity Wards, NICUs Face Budget Scrutiny
State health officials, searching for solutions to Texas’ budget shortfall, are eying neonatal intensive care units, which they fear are being overbuilt and overused by hospitals eager to profit from the high-cost care.
Doctor Shortages Under Health Law May Depend On Geography
Study suggests that areas with low rates of primary care physicians, such as the South and Mountain West, could struggle as they see a surge in Medicaid enrollments and federal incentives for doctors may not be much help.
Medicine’s Rising Costs Put Hippocratic Oath At Risk
A health policy analyst and physician says doctors are under pressure to ration care.
The ‘Missing Link’ In ACOs: Patients
Is it realistic to leverage the success of accountable care organizations on physician incentives alone? In other words, what about patients? Might they be that mysterious point that determines the effectiveness of ACO evolution?
Pharmacists Expand Role To Help Educate And Coach Patients
Consumers often find it easier to get time with a pharmacist than a doctor, so drug stores are offering more outreach programs about chronic health problems.
States’ Mental Health Budgets Fall In Recession
Analysis by advocacy group NAMI finds cuts of $1.8 billion, or about 8 percent of the states’ total budgets, from 2009 through 2011.
Some Medical Practices Move To Monthly Membership Fees For Patients
These new plans cut out insurance policies and offer unlimited access to doctors and nurse practitioners for a modest, set fee.
Younger, Disabled Medicare Beneficiaries Have Trouble Getting Supplementary Insurance
Federal law does not guarantee beneficiaries under the age of 65 the right to buy Medigap coverage and even when they do qualify for a plan, it is often prohibitively expensive.
Fixing America’s Health Care Reimbursement System
Addressing the current system by which physician payment is determined is a challenge that demands attention beyond the physician community. It will take the influence of businesses and patient advocates who bear the brunt of the nation’s skyrocketing health care costs.
Ariz. Medicaid Cuts Spur Debate Over Impact On Providers
Doctors and hospitals raise concerns that reducing eligibility may spur ER crowding and premium increases, but experience in Missouri shows less dire consequences.
Insurance Trade-Off: Reducing Premiums By Eliminating Expensive Doctors, Hospitals
Some insurers are offering consumers a hefty break if they pay more out-of-pocket when they use certain high-cost providers in their network or are cutting the providers from the coverage.
