Category: Hospitals

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Delta Changes the Covid Conversation

With covid cases on the upswing again around the country, partisan division remains over how to address the pandemic. Meanwhile, the Biden administration proposes bigger penalties for hospitals that fail to make their prices public as required. Stephanie Armour of The Wall Street Journal, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico and Tami Luhby of CNN join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also, for “extra credit,” the panelists suggest their favorite stories of the week they think you should read, too.

The Sleeper Health Cost Policy

In this Axios column, Drew Altman unpacks President Biden’s recent executive order on promoting competition, exploring its significance for new efforts to control health costs by addressing consolidation in the health care industry.

Hospital ‘Trauma Centers’ Charge Enormous Fees to Treat Minor Injuries and Send People Home

Only severely injured patients are supposed to be billed for “trauma team alert” fees that can exceed $50,000.

How ERs Fail Patients With Addiction: One Patient’s Tragic Death

Two intractable failings of the U.S. health care system — addiction treatment and medical costs — come to a head in the ER, where patients desperate for addiction treatment arrive, only to find the facility may not be equipped to deal with substance use or, if they are, treatment is prohibitively expensive.

Federal Speech Rulings May Embolden Health Care Workers to Call Out Safety Issues

Policies mandating company approval before talking publicly about conditions in hospitals have been a source of conflict over the past year, as physicians, nurses and other health workers have been disciplined for speaking or posting about what they view as dangerous covid-19 safety precautions. The appeals court’s decision could mean that hospitals — and other employers — will need to revise their policies.

Effort to Decipher Hospital Prices Yields Key Finding: Don’t Try It at Home

Your dutiful columnist tried to make use of a federal “transparency” rule to compare the prices of common medical procedures in two California health care systems. It was a futile exercise.

Hospital Prices Must Now Be Transparent. For Many Consumers, They’re Still Anyone’s Guess.

A Trump administration rule mandating that hospitals disclose true prices on their websites took effect this year. But compliance is spotty and even when the data is public, it’s hard to find and understand.

Covid’s Lingering Effects Can Put the Brakes on Elective Surgeries

Even after recovering from covid, many patients experience respiratory or other problems and, since this effect of the virus is so unpredictable, medical experts aren’t sure when it is safe to undergo elective surgery. But medical experts are setting up guidelines.

A Hospital Charged $722.50 to Push Medicine Through an IV. Twice.

A college student never got an answer for what caused her intense pain, but she did get a bill that totaled $18,736 for an ER visit. She and her mom, a nurse practitioner, fought to understand all the charges.

Hemmed In at Home, Nonprofit Hospitals Look for Profits Abroad

About three dozen elite health systems are involved in for-profit hospital projects overseas. Though the systems are exempt from U.S. taxes for providing “community benefit,” there’s limited evidence that such business ventures benefit American patients.