Some hospitals have taken steps to be more energy-efficient. Though at times these changes barely represent rounding errors in their budgets, comprehensive efforts are beginning to make a difference.
Category: Kaiser Health News
Financial Ties That Bind: Studies Often Fall Short On Conflict-Of-Interest Disclosures
A new study in JAMA Surgery finds that a large sample of published medical research failed to disclose details on the financial relationships between medical device makers and physicians. Changes in the disclosure process could close this loop.
States Leverage Federal Funds To Help Insurers Lower Premiums
Even as it chips away at Obamacare, the Trump administration is solidly behind state-based initiatives to cover high-cost patients, known as “reinsurance” programs. It approved two more last week. [ED NOTE: JULY 30-31]
Voters To Settle Dispute Over Ambulance Employee Break Times
Unlike most other workers, private-ambulance employees are frequently called away from their meals and rest breaks to respond to emergency calls, but there’s no law explicitly allowing that practice. Proposition 11 would change that, but some say its real purpose is to get California’s largest ambulance company out of costly litigation.
Feds Urge States To Encourage Cheaper Plans Off The Exchanges
Many insurers added surcharges to policies they sold to individuals last year to make up for a cut in federal funding. Now, federal officials suggest that states encourage insurers to sell policies without those surcharges outside of the marketplace to help people who don’t get a premium subsidy.
‘No One Is Ever Really Ready’: Aid-In-Dying Patient Chooses His Last Day
With its expansion to Hawaii this year, medical aid-in-dying is now approved in eight U.S. jurisdictions. Even when legal, the controversial practice of choosing to die after a terminal diagnosis is difficult, said one Seattle man who shared his final deliberations.
Medicaid Officials Target Home Health Aides’ Union Dues
Federal officials are proposing a rule to prohibit home health aides paid directly by Medicaid from having their dues for the powerful Service Employees International Union automatically deducted from their paychecks. The effort would likely mean those workers are far less likely to pay dues and could diminish the union’s influence.
Advances In Treating Hep C Lead To New Option For Transplant Patients
The opioid epidemic has increased the number of donated organs. Until recently, though, organs from donors who died of drug overdoses were often discarded because an estimated 30 percent of them were infected with hepatitis C.
Trump Administration Sinks Teeth Into Paring Down Drug Prices, On 5 Key Points
Instead of waiting for congressional action, federal regulators are looking at a series of actions to spur competition and drive down the cost of medicines.
Trump Administration Sinks Teeth Into Paring Down Drug Prices, On 5 Key Points
Instead of waiting for congressional action, federal regulators are looking at a series of actions to spur competition and drive down the cost of medicines.
