Hospitals in New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma are among the first to apply for a new rural hospital payment model that shifts the focus of services away from overnight stays to outpatient and emergency care. Still, experts say the law needs to be amended to provide the right mix of care for rural communities.
Patient injuries, abuse, and neglect have continued at the Montana State Hospital since the state-run psychiatric facility lost its federal certification due to preventable patient deaths. But state officials won’t release details, citing laws making those reports confidential.
Billing experts and lawmakers are playing catch-up as providers find ways to get around new surprise-billing laws, leaving patients like Danielle Laskey of Washington state with big bills for emergency care.
This analysis for the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker uses claims data from private, large employer-based plan to examine trends in complexity coding across outpatient practice settings from 2004 to 2021. It finds a trend toward higher complexity co…
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Rural hospitals fared worse financially in states that have not expanded their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act than in states that expanded Medicaid, a new KFF analysis finds. Nearly one third of all rural hospitals nationally are in th…
This data note examines rural hospitals’ operating margins in recent years. After seeing higher margins early in the pandemic, likely due to government relief funds, rural hospitals now face renewed challenges, especially in states that have not expand…
A state law establishes a list of representatives who can make medical decisions for patients unable to convey their wishes. California is late to making the change; 45 other states and the District of Columbia already have next-of-kin laws.
When Medicare stops paying for a pricey drug that prolongs life, an Ohio man considers giving up treatment to spare his family enormous debt.
As Montana officials seek to make nonprofit hospitals prove the benefits they provide the community justify their tax exemptions, industry leaders propose their own changes — which state officials say would further limit the state’s authority.
