Hospitals are increasingly advertising medical services directly to patients to enhance their national brands. They think the image building improves their ability to negotiate with health plans and brings in wealthier patients.
Category: Health Industry
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.
An Underused Strategy For Surge In STDs: Treat Patients’ Partners Without A Doctor Visit
For over a decade, federal health officials have recommended the practice, known as expedited partner therapy. It is allowed in most states, but many doctors don’t do it — either because of legal or ethical concerns, or because they are unaware of it.
Fish Oil And Vitamin D Pills No Guard Against Cancer Or Serious Heart Trouble
And new study finds no reason to get routine vitamin D tests, researchers say.
Like Clockwork: How Daylight Saving Time Stumps Hospital Record Keeping
One of the most popular electronic health records software systems used by hospitals, Epic Systems, can delete records or require cumbersome workarounds when clocks are set back for an hour, prompting many hospitals to opt for paper records for part of the night shift.
New Heart Drug Spotlights Troubling Trends In Drug Marketing
Critics worry the marketing of Vascepa, a purified fish oil product, could prove a fish story.
Billions In ‘Questionable Payments’ Went To California’s Medicaid Insurers And Providers
The money was paid on behalf of more than 400,000 people who may have been ineligible for the public program, a state audit found. One had been dead for four years before payments stopped.
Dialysis Giant DaVita Defends Itself In Court And At The Polls
Although dialysis provider DaVita Inc. has taken major financial hits this year, including a $383.5 million jury award in response to wrongful death lawsuits, it still rakes in profits. The company faces its biggest threat next month, when California voters weigh in on a ballot initiative that could force it to leave the state.
That’s A Lot Of Scratch: The $48,329 Allergy Test
A California college professor never imagined that trying to figure out what was causing her rash could add up to such a huge bill.
Podcast: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’ Trump, GOP Fight Back On Health Care
In this episode of KHN’s “What the Health?” Julie Rovner of Kaiser Health News, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Kimberly Leonard of the Washington Examiner and Alice Ollstein of Politico discuss a flurry of proposals from the Trump administration on prices Medicare pays for drugs and the Affordable Care Act.
