The insurance company said that the birth of the Bull family’s twins was not an emergency and that NICU care was “not medically necessary.” The family’s experience with a huge bill sent to collections happened in 2020, but it exposes a hole in the new No Surprises law that took effect Jan. 1.
Washington was the first state in the U.S. to introduce a public option for health insurance, but the rollout hasn’t been smooth. Other states with public options in the works are taking notice.
As the pandemic wanes, for now, the ever-rising cost of health care is again taking center stage. Meanwhile, a year into the Biden administration, the FDA finally has a Senate-confirmed commissioner, Dr. Robert Califf. Tami Luhby of CNN, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet, and Rachel Cohrs of Stat join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Hannah Wesolowski of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, about how the pandemic has worsened the nation’s mental health crisis and what can be done about it.
Telehealth use skyrocketed during the early months of the pandemic. While it has since decreased somewhat from that high, it still represents a much more substantial share of health care than before COVID, this KFF-Epic Research analysis finds.
This updated analysis examines COVID-19’s effect on mortality rates, and estimates that in January 2022, COVID-19 was number two on the list of leading causes of death in the U.S.
At Salem Health Salem Hospital in Oregon, the omicron surge is still swamping health care workers. They are ground down emotionally but keep showing up for their patients.
Among the 764 hospitals hit with a 1% reduction in Medicare payments this year for having high numbers of patient infections and avoidable complications are more than three dozen that Medicare also ranks as among the best in the country.
The No Surprises Act protects patients from surprise out-of-network bills. But there are caveats. For instance, these protections apply only to care in a hospital. This episode breaks it all down.
If federal officials accept a court’s decision, some patients will get a chance to seek refunds for their nursing home and other expenses.
Mass General Brigham’s $2.3 billion expansion plan is raising state officials’ concerns that it will reduce competition and raise the price of care in Massachusetts. It also signals a national shift from a focus on hospital mergers and purchases of physician practices — which boost the cost of care — to individual hospitals’ expansions to gain a bigger share of the market.
