California’s health insurance exchange will reduce how much some patients pay for care next year, including hospital deductibles, appointment copays, and prescription drugs. Lawmakers pressed Gov. Gavin Newsom to make good on a four-year-old pledge to use proceeds from a tax penalty on uninsured people to help people pay for treatment.
Medical and RV industry professionals say hospitals that offer RV parking are easing access to health care for some patients who drive long distances for treatment, like many rural residents.
The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, a national hotline, reached its first-year milestone this month.
The owner of one of California’s largest chains of pain management clinics has agreed to pay California, Oregon, and the federal government to settle Medicare and Medi-Cal fraud allegations.
Congress has until October to avert cuts to a Medicaid program intended to support safety-net hospitals that, in practice, improves the bottom lines of other hospitals, too. Hospital leaders say now is not a good time for the cuts — which lawmakers have so far postponed 13 times.
Although nearly 40% of Americans 60 and older are obese, Medicare doesn’t cover weight loss medications. Meanwhile, studies haven’t thoroughly examined new drugs’ impact on older adults.
FDA Commissioner Robert Califf has called misinformation one of the deadliest killers in the United States. As the FDA tries to fight that scourge, it sometimes stumbles.
House Republican legislation promises more health insurance options but fewer protections, even as the Biden administration seeks to rein in short-term plans, which were expanded in the Trump era.
A bankruptcy judge will soon decide whether a Central Valley hospital needs to liquidate to repay its creditors. Its largest creditor, St. Agnes Medical Center, is the very entity that backed out of purchasing the Madera Community Hospital last December.
State officials have promised to boost funding for California’s Medicaid program by $11.1 billion starting next year, with most of that money earmarked for higher payments to doctors, hospitals, and other providers. But the details have yet to be worked out, and powerful health industry groups are jockeying for position.
