A state lawmaker wants health insurers to disclose denial rates and explain those denials as anger grows over rising costs and uncovered medical care. If the bill is signed into law, health experts say, it could be one of the boldest attempts in the nation to rein in denials.
States are required to claw back health care costs from the estates of many Medicaid recipients. Some, including Iowa, are particularly aggressive in their pursuit.
Pain MD, which once ran as many as 20 clinics across three states, gave chronic-pain patients about 700,000 total injections near their spines, according to court documents. Last year, federal prosecutors proved at trial that the shots were medically unnecessary and part of an extensive fraud scheme.
Delays in urgent CDC analyses of seasonal flu and bird flu, and the agency’s silence, will harm Americans as outbreaks escalate, doctors and public health experts warn.
KFF Health News shares our favorite reader-submitted health policy valentines. One struck us in the heart and inspired an original cartoon.
As Republicans consider adding work requirements to Medicaid, Georgia and Arkansas — two states with experience running such programs — want to scale back the key parts supporters have argued encourage employment and personal responsibility.
Patients and providers say health insurers’ preapproval requirements lead to delays and denials of needed medical treatments. Insurers argue that prior authorization keeps costs down.
Frustrated by spiraling drug costs, California lawmakers want to increase oversight of pharmaceutical industry intermediaries known as pharmacy benefit managers. It’s unclear whether they can persuade Gov. Gavin Newsom to get on board.
Mental health workers on strike in Southern California say Kaiser Permanente is woefully understaffed, its therapists are burned out, and patients are often denied timely access to care. The insurer says it has largely fixed the problem. But across California and the nation, mental health parity is still not a reality.
More than 60,000 people bleed to death every year in the United States. Many of those deaths occur before the patient reaches a trauma center where blood transfusions can be given.
