The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.
A new state law says hospitals and insurers will have to work it out among themselves when they can鈥檛 agree on a price — instead of sending huge bills to patients. 鈥淏ill of the Month鈥 patient Drew Calver galvanized attention on the issue after he told his story to KHN, NPR and “CBS This Morning.”
Nearly 9 in 10 Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents said it is very important for candidates to discuss health issues. But they are sharply divided among the goals of lowering costs, increasing access, protecting the Affordable Care Act or moving to a 鈥淢edicare for All鈥 plan, a poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation reported.
A service called neuromonitoring can cut the risk of nerve damage during delicate surgery. But some patients are receiving unexpected and large bills for the service.
The federal government has doled out at least $2.4 billion in state grants since 2017 to address the opioid epidemic, which killed 47,600 people in the U.S. that year alone. But local officials note that drug abuse problems seldom involve only one substance.
Newsletter editor Brianna Labuskes wades through hundreds of health care policy stories each week, so you don’t have to.
The median cost of an air ambulance bill is more than $36,000 and seldom covered by insurance, sparking many consumer complaints. Yet none of the proposals introduced or circulating in Congress to fix surprise medical bills address these services.
California lawmakers are debating whether to tighten the rules on childhood vaccinations and give the ultimate say to state public health officials. But questions are emerging from unexpected quarters: the state medical board and Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Kaiser Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.
Lawmakers and patients want to eliminate 鈥渟urprise鈥 out-of-network medical bills. Hospitals, doctors and insurers say they want to eliminate them, too, but their opposition to one another鈥檚 proposals could complicate legislative efforts. Stephanie Armour of The Wall Street Journal, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico and Kimberly Leonard of the Washington Examiner join KHN鈥檚 Julie Rovner to discuss this, plus the latest in news about reproductive health and health care sharing ministries.
As people advance in age, the expectations for what constitutes good health change. People focus on positive emotions and satisfaction with life, while physical ailments play a less important role.
The widespread availability of naloxone, which reverses overdoses, has radically changed the culture of opioid use on the streets, giving drug users a sense of security and inducing them to seek out the more powerful high of the synthetic opioid fentanyl.
It鈥檚 never easy to tell a patient about a terminal illness, but a longtime doctor whose own diagnosis was botched says physicians must do better.
Supporters of the rule say it would strengthen health care professionals鈥 freedom of conscience, but opponents say it 鈥渆mpowers bad actors to be bad actors.鈥
An unexpected hospital bill can bust the family budget. That leaves lots of people with bills they can鈥檛 pay. Turns out, that鈥檚 a crisis for hospitals too, and some are getting creative about collecting debt.
In March, a chemical cousin of the anesthetic and club drug ketamine was approved for the treatment of patients with intractable depression. But critics say studies presented to the FDA provided at best modest evidence it worked and did not include information about the safety of the drug, Spravato, for long-term use.
Boomers are aging reluctantly but, for the most part, gracefully. Many even have found the secret to shaving a decade or more off their physical age.
Across the nation, public health departments are redirecting scarce resources to try to control the spread of measles. Their success relies on shoe-leather detective work that is one of the great untold costs of the measles resurgence.
Some Veterans Affairs hospitals around the country use writers to record patients’ life stories, then place a short biography in each vet鈥檚 medical record. The My Life, My Story program gives clinicians another way to get to know their patients.
Newsletter editor Brianna Labuskes wades through hundreds of health care policy stories each week, so you don’t have to.
The scientific use of tissue from aborted fetuses has frequently been a hot point of contention between anti-abortion forces and researchers. It heats up again as federal officials announced this week they were ending NIH research using the tissue.
