Category: Cost and Quality

Patients Turn To GoFundMe When Money And Hope Run Out

Medical fundraisers account for 1 in 3 of the website’s campaigns and bring in more money than any other GoFundMe category. Americans’ confidence they can afford health care is slipping, some say.

GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ In Health System Showing Up In Crowdfunding

Fundraising for medical expenses leads this crowdfunding website and, according to its chief executive, highlights a deep national need to address the high costs of health care.

Health Care Industry Spends $30B A Year Pushing Its Wares, From Drugs To Stem Cell Treatment

Critics say patients are often misled by ads that advocate high-priced drugs or genetic tests.

Must-Reads Of The Week From Brianna Labuskes

Newsletter editor Brianna Labuskes wades through hundreds of health articles from the week so you don’t have to.

Podcast: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’ Ask Us Anything!

From Medicare dental coverage to drug prices to fetal tissue research, the panelists answer listeners’ questions. Joanne Kenen of Politico, Stephanie Armour of The Wall Street Journal and Paige Winfield Cunningham of The Washington Post join KHN’s Julie Rovner.

Insured But Still In Debt: 5 Jobs Pulling In $100K A Year No Match For Medical Bills

An Arizona couple played by the rules and bought employer-provided health insurance. But after they had a baby this year, their out-of-pocket hospital costs and doctors’ bills climbed to more than $12,000 — and medical debt now threatens their new family.

Massachusetts Stroke Patient Receives ‘Outrageous’ $474,725 Medical Flight Bill

After a 34-year-old woman suffered a stroke in Kansas, doctors there arranged for her to be transferred to a Boston hospital, via an Angel MedFlight Learjet. The woman and her father believed the cost of the medical flight would be covered by her private insurance. Then they got the bill.

Refund On The Way To Latest ‘Bill Of The Month’ Patient

Ski buff Sarah Witter will get $6,358.26 back from her hospital and insurer after a careful review of her bill following the KHN-NPR story on her case.

Year One Of KHN’s ‘Bill Of The Month’: A Kaleidoscope Of Financial Challenges

A crowdsourced investigation in which we dissect, investigate and explain medical bills you send us.

Why The U.S. Remains The World’s Most Expensive Market For ‘Biologic’ Drugs

Biologic drugs, made from living organisms, are big moneymakers partly because they have little competition from “biosimilars.” It’s a very different story in Europe.