Latest KFF Health News Stories
Like Doctors, More Nurse Practitioners Are Heading Into Specialty Care
If your doctor can’t see you now, maybe the nurse practitioner can. Nurse practitioners have long been a reliable backstop for the primary-care-physician shortfall, which is estimated at nearly 21,000 doctors this year and projected to get worse. But easy access to NPs could be tested in coming years. Even though nearly 90 percent of […]
Funding Instability Plagues Program That Brings Docs to Underserved Areas
A medical residency program designed to train future primary care physicians in outpatient rather than hospital settings has proved an effective means to bring doctors to rural and underserved areas. But it hinges on unpredictable congressional funding.
Biden’s on Target About What Repealing ACA Would Mean for Preexisting Condition Protections
A Biden campaign ad highlighting how an Obamacare repeal would affect people with preexisting conditions is mostly true.
California Dabbles With Reining in Health Spending
California is now among the states trying to keep health-care costs down by setting spending caps — a task that pits public officials against a deeply entrenched and heavily lawyered set of players. It’s uncertain whether the state can get insurers, hospitals and medical groups to collaborate on containing costs even as they jockey for […]
End of Internet Subsidy Leaves Millions Facing Telehealth Disconnect
When the clock struck midnight on May 31, more than 23 million low-income households were dropped from a federal internet subsidy program that for years had helped them get connected. The Affordable Connectivity Program was created in 2021, in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic, to help people plug into jobs, schools and health care by reducing their internet […]
Bird Flu Tests Are Hard To Get. So How Will We Know When To Sound the Pandemic Alarm?
If widely used, flu tests could be helpful now. In the meantime, the government needs to clear a path for H5N1 tests, researchers warn, to avoid the early missteps of the covid pandemic.
Biden Plan To Save Medicare Patients Money on Drugs Risks Empty Shelves, Pharmacists Say
President Joe Biden is campaigning for reelection on his efforts to cut costs for Medicare patients at the pharmacy counter. But independent pharmacists say one strategy makes it unaffordable for them to keep some brand-name medicines in stock.
Las pruebas para la gripe aviar son difíciles de conseguir. ¿Cómo saber si estamos en una pandemia?
Muchos laboratorios de diagnóstico están capacitados para detectar el virus. Sin embargo, la burocracia, los problemas de facturación y la falta de inversión no permiten aumentar rápidamente la disponibilidad generalizada de pruebas.
Thousands of Children Got Tested for Lead With Faulty Devices: What Parents Should Know
Faulty lead test kits made by Magellan Diagnostics may have been used as late as 2021 to test children for exposure to the toxic metal. The company agreed to pay $42 million to settle criminal charges that it concealed malfunctions.
Es el último capítulo de una larga saga que involucra a Magellan Diagnostics, con sede en Massachusetts, que pagará $42 millones en multas, según el Departamento de Justicia.
What the Health? From KFF Health News: Nursing Home Staffing Rules Prompt Pushback
The nursing home industry — as well as a healthy number of Congress members — are all pushing back on the Biden administration’s new rules on nursing home staffing. Industry officials say that there are not enough workers to meet the requirements and that the costs would be prohibitive. Meanwhile, Democrats on Capitol Hill are trying to force Republicans to explain their exact positions on assuring access to contraceptives and in vitro fertilization. Rachel Cohrs Zhang of Stat, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews KFF Health News’ Bram Sable-Smith, who reported and wrote the latest KFF Health News-NPR “Bill of the Month” feature about a free cruise that turned out to be anything but.
Biden Wants Hospitals To Report Data on Gunshot Wounds
The Biden administration is enlisting America’s doctors to help combat gun violence. About 160 health-care executives and officials have been invited to the White House today and Friday to promote public health solutions to the epidemic. A top priority, I’m told: The White House wants hospital emergency departments to collect more data about gunshot injuries […]
White House Enlists Doctors and Hospitals To Combat Gun Violence
As Congress remains deadlocked on gun policy, the Biden administration is calling on hospital leaders and doctors to gather more data about gunshot injuries and deaths and step up their violence prevention work.
Health Worker for a Nonprofit? The New Ban on Noncompete Contracts May Not Help You
Provider groups are disappointed that the Federal Trade Commission’s new rule may not protect those who work for nonprofit hospitals and health care facilities, which employ the largest number of medical professionals.
California Becomes Latest State To Try Capping Health Care Spending
California is the ninth state to set annual health spending targets for the industry. Already hospitals and doctors are voicing resistance to the fledgling Office of Health Care Affordability, even as they avoid overtly opposing its goals.
Readers Issue Rx for Clogged ERs and Outrageous Out-of-Pocket Costs
KFF Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.
The Chicken and Egg Problem of Fighting Another Flu Pandemic
The spread of an avian flu virus in cattle has again brought public health attention to the potential for a global pandemic. Fighting it would depend, for now, on 1940s technology that makes vaccines from hens’ eggs.
El problema del huevo y la gallina en la lucha contra otra pandemia de gripe
La propagación de un nuevo virus entre múltiples especies en un área geográfica amplia eleva la amenaza de que más mutaciones puedan producir un virus que se propague de humano a humano a través de la transmisión aérea.
An Obscure Drug Discount Program Stifles Use of Federal Lifeline by Rural Hospitals
A disconnect between two federal programs meant to help keep hospitals afloat discourages struggling rural facilities from accepting the aid.
Safety-Net Health Clinics Cut Services and Staff Amid Medicaid ‘Unwinding’
One of Montana’s largest safety-net health centers announced it will lay off nearly 10% of its workforce because of revenue losses it attributes to vast Medicaid disenrollments. Such cuts are happening elsewhere too.
