Category: Hospitals

Labor Tries City-by-City Push in California for $25 Minimum Wage at Private Medical Facilities

Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West is testing the waters on a $25 minimum wage for support staff at health care facilities in Southern California. Opposition from hospitals and health facilities is driving an expensive battle.

As Giant Hospitals Get Bigger, An Independent Doctor Feels the Squeeze

Independent medical practices keep closing as doctors join behemoth hospital groups or leave the field. Research suggests that’s bad news for patients. Studies repeatedly conclude that consolidation in the health care industry is driving up costs while showing no clear evidence of improved care.

Baby, That Bill Is High: Private Equity ‘Gambit’ Squeezes Excessive ER Charges From Routine Births

Hospitals, boosted by private equity-backed staffing companies, have embraced a new idea: the obstetrics emergency department. Often, it is just a triage room in the labor-and-delivery area, but it bills like the main emergency department.

‘Separate and Unequal’: Critics Say Newsom’s Pricey Medicaid Reforms Leave Most Patients Behind

MLK Community Hospital in South Los Angeles is surrounded by poverty, homeless encampments, and food deserts. Even though California Gov. Gavin Newsom is funneling billions of taxpayer money into an ambitious initiative to provide some low-income patients with social services, hospital executives and other critics say it won’t improve access to basic care.

Hospitals Have Been Slow to Bring On Addiction Specialists

Hospitals have specialists ready to offer consult and care for concerns from cancer to childbirth but often no one with expertise in addiction medicine. Patients with a history of substance use — who are discharged without care — are at risk for overdose.

Hurricane Ian Shows That Coastal Hospitals Aren’t Ready for Climate Change

Hundreds of medical centers along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts face serious risks from even relatively weak storms as climate change accelerates sea-level rise — not to mention big ones like Category 4 Hurricane Ian.

$80,000 and 5 ER Visits: An Ectopic Pregnancy Takes a Toll Despite NY’s Liberal Abortion Law

If an embryo has implanted in a fallopian tube, ending the pregnancy is imperative to protect the patient’s life. Women’s health advocates have raised concerns that the needed treatment may be hampered by restrictive abortion laws in some states. Yet women seeking treatment in states with more liberal abortion laws may still find the process expensive and harrowing.

Watch: Their Baby Died. The Medical Bills Haunted Them.

Sterling Raspe lived just eight months. In this KHN video, her father shows the 2-inch stack of medical bills generated by Sterling’s care.

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: On Government Spending, Congress Decides Not to Decide

Congress has once again decided not to decide how to fund the federal government in time for the start of the fiscal year, racing toward a midnight Sept. 30 deadline to pass a stopgap bill that would keep the lights on for two more months. However, it does appear the FDA’s program that gets drugmakers to help fund some of the agency’s review staff will be renewed in time to stop pink slips from being sent. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Rachel Cohrs of Stat, and Victoria Knight of Axios join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these topics and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews filmmaker Cynthia Lowen, whose new documentary, “Battleground,” explores how anti-abortion forces played the long game to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Turned Away From Urgent Care — And Toward a Big ER Bill

Russell Cook was expecting a quick and inexpensive visit to an urgent care center for his daughter, Frankie, after she had a car wreck. Instead, they were advised to go to an emergency room and got a much larger bill.