California’s Medicaid program is relying heavily on community groups to deliver new social services to vulnerable patients, such as security deposits for homeless people and air purifiers for asthma patients. But many of these nonprofits face staffing and billing challenges and haven’t been able to deliver services effectively.
A California lawmaker wants the state to craft guidelines for how and when schoolchildren can play or exercise during extreme weather, including heat waves. The bill comes after a 12-year-old boy died after a physical education instructor told him to run as the temperature topped 90 degrees.
Hundreds of Native American tribes are getting money from settlements with companies that made or sold prescription painkillers. Some are investing it in sweat lodges, statistical models, and insurance-billing staffers.
Most U.S. hospitals aggressively pursue patients for unpaid bills. One New York hospital system decided to work with them instead.
More than 172,000 nursing home residents died of covid. In lawsuits, some families who lost loved ones say they were misled about safety measures or told that covid wasn’t a danger in their facilities.
People with disabilities say they are abruptly losing their Medicaid home health benefits and are being advised incorrectly when they call state offices for more information. “Every day the anxiety builds,” one beneficiary told KFF Health News.
Johns Dental Laboratories stopped making the Anterior Growth Guidance Appliance last year after a KFF Health News-CBS News investigation into allegations of patient harm. The company had “never” reported any complaints about its products to the FDA, according to the agency.
Facing an overdose epidemic and public fury over conditions on the streets, famously tolerant San Francisco will start requiring welfare recipients to undergo drug screening, and treatment if necessary, to receive cash public assistance.
California lawmakers have modified a psychedelic drug bill that was vetoed last year, narrowing it to allow only supervised use of psilocybin mushrooms, ecstasy, and other hallucinogens rather than decriminalize more broadly. The current bill would establish new state agencies to regulate the program.
Millions of new parents in the U.S. are swamped by medical debt during and after pregnancy, forcing many to cut back on food, clothing, and other essentials.
