Tennessee Tries To Rein In Ballad’s Hospital Monopoly After Years of Problems
Ballad Health, a 20-hospital system with the nation's largest state-sanctioned hospital monopoly, serves patients in Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina.
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Ballad Health, a 20-hospital system with the nation's largest state-sanctioned hospital monopoly, serves patients in Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina.
Despite years of national strategies to address the suicide crisis in the U.S., rates continue to rise. A chorus of researchers and experts say the interventions will work — but that they’re simply not being adopted by state and local governments.
About 8% of Americans lacked health insurance in 2023, the Census Bureau announced. But its report doesn’t capture the effect of states winnowing their Medicaid rolls by millions of people since the pandemic emergency ended.
Federal regulators provided more specifics about why they suspended two private sector Affordable Care Act enrollment sites, including concerns about potential overseas accessing of consumer data and suspicions of involvement in Obamacare enrollment and switching schemes. The companies reject the assertions.
The pharmaceutical industry has invented a new art form: finding ways to make their wares seem like joyous must-have treatments, while often minimizing lackluster efficacy and risks.
State leaders are cutting public health spending and laying off workers hired during a pandemic-era grant boom. Public health officials say the bust will erode important advancements in the public health safety net, particularly in rural areas.
The Indian Health Service has a program that can pay for outside appointments when patients need care not offered at agency-funded sites. Critics say money shortages, complex rules, and administrative fumbles often block access, however.
As states wait for Deloitte to make fixes in computer systems, Medicaid beneficiaries risk losing access to health care and food.
A private 2014 decision by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services faces new scrutiny in a multibillion-dollar Justice Department fraud case against UnitedHealth Group.
In this episode of “An Arm and a Leg,” host Dan Weissmann speaks with Caitlyn Mai, a woman in Oklahoma who received a six-figure bill for a surgery her insurance promised to cover. This episode is an extended version of the “Bill of the Month” series, produced in partnership with NPR.
Vice President Kamala Harris is seen as more aggressive than former President Donald Trump in taking on pharmaceutical companies, but Trump allies say he would also make lowering drug costs a top priority.
KFF Health News and The New York Times are looking into a dreaded “adulting” milestone: finding your own medical insurance at 26.
Regulators have been under the gun to curb unauthorized Obamacare enrollment and switching of plans. Separately, a pending lawsuit was amended with additional defendants and new allegations regarding tactics to garner greater ACA sales commissions.
A collection agency sought court authority to garnish a patient’s wages to pay a disputed surgery bill. But after the patient showed up in court to argue the bill was bogus, the judge declined to let the bill collector seize her money.
As Democrats convene in Chicago to make official their presidential and vice presidential nominees, Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz together are raising the prominence of health care as a 2024 election issue.
While fighting potential fraud in government programs has long been a conservative rallying cry, recent criticisms of the Affordable Care Act represent a renewed line of attack on the program when repealing it is unlikely.
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