A lab assistant who spoke out about employee safety. A disease intervention specialist who hoped to follow her mother into nursing. A father of three who juggled jobs at three nursing homes. These are some of the people just added to “Lost on the Frontline,” a special series from The Guardian and KHN that profiles health care workers who died of COVID-19.
Nursing homes with COVID-19 infections tend to violate health rules more often and have more complaints and fines, records show. But infections also plague highly rated facilities — while sparing some low-ranked ones.
The Supreme Court this week, in an 8-1 decision, ruled that insurers are due the roughly $12 billion that Congress several years ago tried to cut off in payments under the Affordable Care Act’s “risk corridors” provision. And while the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage in many places around the country, states are starting to reopen their economies at the urging of President Donald Trump and over objections of public health officials. Caitlin Owens of Axios and Mary Ellen McIntire of CQ Roll Call join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss this and more. Also, Rovner interviews KHN’s Carmen Heredia Rodriguez, who wrote the latest KHN-NPR “Bill of the Month” installment about COVID testing that should have been free but was not.
With most nonemergency procedures shelved for now, many health insurers are expected to see profits in the near term, but the longer view of how the coronavirus will affect them is far more complicated and could well impact what people pay for coverage next year.
The U.S. government spent $36 billion computerizing health records, yet they’re of limited help in the COVID-19 crisis.
Her doctor worried she had COVID-19 but couldn’t test her for it until she ruled out other things. That test cost a bundle.
Because high-end N95 masks are scarce, medical centers are using surgical masks that have been linked to considerably higher infection rates.
As the coronavirus threatens the finances of thousands of hospitals, wealthy ones that can draw on millions — and even billions — of dollars in savings are in competition with near-insolvent hospitals for limited pots of financial relief.
This week on “An Arm and a Leg,” a front-line physician wonders if the health care industry’s drive for “efficiency” has robbed the system of surge capacity, leaving the nation underprepared to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
HHS said this test would “save personal protective equipment.” But Abbott’s very design ― devised for mobile testing — means those working with specimens need even more protection, experts warn.
