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In the first nine months of an alternative pain management program in Missouri, only a small fraction of the state’s Medicaid recipients have accessed the chiropractic care, acupuncture, physical therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy meant to combat the overprescription of opioids.
Indiana was ground zero for shifting ideas about needle exchanges after a small town had an HIV outbreak in 2015 brought on by needle-sharing. But even as other parts of the country start to embrace needle exchanges amid the ongoing opioid epidemic, the sites remain controversial in Indiana. Only nine of the state’s 92 counties have them, after a series of closures and reopenings.
For Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers, social and emotional isolation is a threat. But hundreds of “Memory Cafes” around the country offer them a chance to be with others who understand, and to receive social and cognitive stimulation in the process.
As the Democratic primary campaign nears pivotal voting, important aspects of health care policy are being overlooked.
Across the U.S., people with early dementia are signing new advance directives to confirm their end-of-life wishes while they still have the ability to do so. But doctors say the documents may offer a false sense of security.
For rural physicians, the burden of responding to the opioid epidemic falls squarely on their already loaded shoulders. For one doctor in a small Wisconsin village, there was no question that she wanted to rise to the challenge.
Nearly a decade ago, Dr. Jeffrey Brenner and his Camden Coalition appeared to have an answer to remake American health care: Treat the sickest and most expensive patients. But a rigorous study in the New England Journal of Medicine shows the approach doesn’t save money. “We built a brilliant intervention to navigate people to nowhere,” Brenner tells the “Tradeoffs” podcast.
California now will pay pediatricians to screen Medi-Cal patients for traumatic events known as adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs. The program is based on research showing that children who endure chronic stress have an increased risk of developing serious health problems. Here are five things to know about the new program.
Kaiser Health News senior correspondent Sarah Varney and PBS NewsHour producer Jason Kane report from Tennessee, where the rate of uninsured kids has soared.
New thinking about aging spins on how to stay free of chronic illnesses and cognitive decline later in life.
Kaiser Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.
After the state legalized recreational marijuana in 2016, new taxes and regulations decimated an ad hoc network that had donated cannabis for medical purposes to patients who could not afford it. A recent law seeks to revive the network, but hurdles remain.
Interviews with dozens of Kaiser Permanente therapists, patients and industry experts reveal superficial changes that look good on paper but do not translate into more effective and accessible care.
Dr. Anton Nigusse Bland, a veteran of public health psychiatry, was appointed by San Francisco’s mayor earlier this year to a newly created job: director of mental health reform. His main task is to improve mental health and addiction treatment for people experiencing homelessness.
The opioid epidemic is intergenerational, with tens of thousands of babies born every year dependent on opioids. Advocates worry that settlement dollars resulting from lawsuits against the drug industry might not benefit these children.
Most domestic assault offenders are adults, but about 1 in 12 who come to the attention of law enforcement are minors, according to a 2008 study by the U.S. Justice Department. In half of those cases, the victim was a parent, most often the mother.
Suicide rates across the country have been rising for 20 years. That’s true in New York, too, but even so, its rate is about half that of the country as a whole.
“Warmlines” are phone lines or electronic chat options for people who are not having a full-blown mental health crisis but who could use support to stave off one. They are a growing trend in mental health outreach to supplement existing hotlines, with one successful warmline in the Bay Area recently expanding to cover all of California.
Health care workers face a greater threat of workplace violence than workers in most other industries. Hospitals are installing security cameras and panic buttons, arming security guards with stun guns and teaching their employees how to handle potentially violent situations.
Cultural barriers may keep some African American women from seeking treatment for postpartum depression as early as they need it, and the standard screening tools aren’t always relevant for some black women.
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