Ballad Health’s Hospital Monopoly Underperformed. Then Tennessee Lowered the Bar.
Ballad Health, a state-sanctioned hospital monopoly in Tennessee and Virginia, can now be deemed a “clear and convincing” benefit to the public with performance that would earn a “D” on most grading scales, according to Tennessee state documents.
Watch: In a ‘Dead Zone,’ Doctors Don’t Practice and Telehealth Doesn’t Reach
Chief rural health correspondent Sarah Jane Tribble explains how millions of rural Americans live in counties with doctor shortages and where high-speed internet connections aren’t adequate to access advanced telehealth services.
Journalists Draw Link Between Internet Dead Zones, Threatened Medicaid Cuts, and Health
KFF Health News journalists made the rounds on national or local media recently to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
Feds Chop Enforcement Staff and Halt Rules Meant To Curb Black Lung in Coal Miners
The Trump administration has paused implementation of a rule limiting miners’ exposure to airborne silica dust days after a federal court agreed to put it on hold to hear an industry challenge. The protections are meant to head off a surge in cases of black lung disease. Meanwhile, any enforcement of new standards might be meager due to workforce cuts.
A Medicaid Patient Had a Heart Attack While Traveling. He Owed Almost $78,000.
Federal law says Medicaid must cover out-of-state emergency care. But a Florida man got a five-figure bill after a South Dakota hospital declined to charge his state’s Medicaid program.
In Arizona County That Backed Trump, Conflicted Feelings About Cutting Medicaid
Medicaid plays a vital role in many rural communities that favored President Donald Trump in the 2024 election. But residents still seem open to Republican proposals to cut perceived waste in the program.
Federal Cuts Ripple Through a Bioscience Hub in Rural Montana
The National Institutes of Health’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana, is one of only a few dozen research facilities of its type. The threat of staffing and grant cuts has town leaders worried and has added to long-standing tension around the lab’s presence in this politically conservative region.
How Trump Aims To Slash Federal Support for Research, Public Health, and Medicaid
One thing experts agree on: The damage from the funding cuts will be varied and immense.
Rural Patients Face Tough Choices When Their Hospitals Stop Delivering Babies
More than 100 rural hospitals have stopped delivering babies since 2021, including a South Dakota hospital that serves small towns, farming communities, and a Native American reservation. Patients there now travel at least an hour to give birth.
Housing, Nutrition in Peril as Trump Pulls Back Medicaid Social Services
About half of states have broadened Medicaid, the state-federal low-income health care program, to pay for social services such as housing and nutritional support. The Trump administration, however, views these experiments as distractions from the core mission to provide health care.
Los hospitales que atienden partos en zonas rurales están cada vez más lejos de las embarazadas
Más de un centenar de hospitales rurales han dejado de atender partos desde 2021, según el Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform. El cierre de los servicios de obstetricia se suele achacar a la falta de personal y la falta de presupuesto.
Flawed Federal Programs Maroon Rural Americans in Telehealth Limbo
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Mental Health and Substance Misuse Treatment Is Increasingly a Video Chat or Phone Call Away
More Californians are getting mental health or substance use disorder treatment online or over the phone than in person, according to a KFF Health News analysis of UCLA’s latest California Health Interview Survey. But the telehealth experience isn’t always positive.
Flawed Federal Programs Maroon Rural Americans in Telehealth Blackouts
Taxpayers — through federal infrastructure programs — have paid billions of dollars to internet companies to hook up rural Americans. Some communities have nothing to show for it, leaving medically vulnerable rural patients disconnected and without access to telehealth.
Trump’s Fast-Tracked Deal for a Copper Mine Heightens Existential Fight for Apache
Apache tribal members are already feeling psychological and spiritual harm as the Trump administration moves to fast-track a deal to turn their sacred land of Oak Flat, Arizona, into a copper mine.
Medicaid Payments Barely Keep Hospital Mental Health Units Afloat. Federal Cuts Could Sink Them.
Patients seeking mental health care are more likely to be on Medicaid than patients in more profitable areas of care, such as cancer or cardiac treatment.
Seeking Spending Cuts, GOP Lawmakers Target a Tax Hospitals Love To Pay
Republicans, on the hunt for spending cuts, are eyeing a special kind of Medicaid tax that nearly every state uses to boost funding for hospitals, nursing homes, and other providers.
HIV Testing and Outreach Falter as Trump Funding Cuts Sweep the South
A disruption in federal funds has jeopardized HIV testing and outreach in Mississippi, and researchers warn of a resurgence of the epidemic in the South.
Montana Lawmakers Approve $124M To Revamp Behavioral Health System
The legislation calls for a new mental health facility in eastern Montana, upgrades to existing state facilities, expansion of community services, and revisions to commitment procedures.
Federal Cuts Gut Food Banks as They Face Record Demand
Food banks nationwide are being pinched by record demand, high food prices, and hundreds of millions of dollars in federal budget cuts. As the economy plods onto shaky ground, food bank leaders hope Congress patches the holes by passing a new farm bill.
