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California’s health insurance exchange will reduce how much some patients pay for care next year, including hospital deductibles, appointment copays, and prescription drugs. Lawmakers pressed Gov. Gavin Newsom to make good on a four-year-old pledge to use proceeds from a tax penalty on uninsured people to help people pay for treatment.
The owner of one of California’s largest chains of pain management clinics has agreed to pay California, Oregon, and the federal government to settle Medicare and Medi-Cal fraud allegations.
The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, a national hotline, reached its first-year milestone this month.
Congress has until October to avert cuts to a Medicaid program intended to support safety-net hospitals that, in practice, improves the bottom lines of other hospitals, too. Hospital leaders say now is not a good time for the cuts — which lawmakers have so far postponed 13 times.
Although nearly 40% of Americans 60 and older are obese, Medicare doesn’t cover weight loss medications. Meanwhile, studies haven’t thoroughly examined new drugs’ impact on older adults.
KFF Health News and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
A bankruptcy judge will soon decide whether a Central Valley hospital needs to liquidate to repay its creditors. Its largest creditor, St. Agnes Medical Center, is the very entity that backed out of purchasing the Madera Community Hospital last December.
State officials have promised to boost funding for California’s Medicaid program by $11.1 billion starting next year, with most of that money earmarked for higher payments to doctors, hospitals, and other providers. But the details have yet to be worked out, and powerful health industry groups are jockeying for position.
Doctors and hospitals hold an exalted position in American life, retaining public confidence even as other institutions such as government, law enforcement, and the media are losing people’s trust. But with health care debt out of hand, medical providers risk their good standing.
A little-noticed provision of sweeping legislation to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration would make it easier to fly human organs from donor to recipient.
President Biden made good on a campaign promise this week with a proposal that would limit short-term health insurance plans that boast low premiums but also few benefits. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court’s decision to outlaw affirmative action programs could set back efforts to diversify the nation’s medical workforce. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post, and Rachel Cohrs of Stat News join KFF Health News’ chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews KFF Health News’ Bram Sable-Smith, who reported the latest KFF Health News-NPR “Bill of the Month” about how a hospital couldn’t track down a patient, but a debt collector could.
The state now requires Medicaid to cover midwife services and has expanded the list of prescription drugs midwives can administer.
As three years of pandemic stress accelerated an ongoing nationwide mental health crisis, peer respite programs diverted patients from overburdened emergency rooms, psychiatric institutions, and behavioral therapists. Now, more “respites” are opening.
Nonprofit hospitals avoid paying taxes if they provide community benefits such as charity care. More states are examining that trade-off, scrutinizing the extent of hospitals’ spending on their communities.
A venous needle dislodgment is a rare dialysis complication that can kill a patient in minutes. Some experts worry those who treat themselves at home are at increased risk.
To drive down costs, insurers are bypassing hospital system pharmacies and delivering high-priced infusion drugs, including some used in chemotherapy, via third-party pharmacies. Smarting from losing out on billing for those drugs, hospitals and clinics are trying to convince states to limit this practice, known as "white bagging."
Twelve of the largest drugstores in the U.S. sent shoppers’ sensitive health information to Facebook or other platforms, according to an investigation by The Markup and KFF Health News.
The “front door” to the health system is changing, under pressure from increased demand, consolidation, and changing patient expectations.
The $120 million International African American Museum that opened this week in Charleston, South Carolina, allows visitors to step back in history at Gadsden’s Wharf, where tens of thousands of enslaved Africans arrived in America, the genesis of generations of health disparities.
The FDA, Justice Department, and White House have failed to act as vapes with kid-friendly flavors like cotton candy or gummy bears proliferate.
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