Category: Hospitals

KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: The Pandemic Shifts; The Politics, Not So Much

While federal and state officials continue to wrangle over coronavirus testing, the population testing positive is skewing younger. Meanwhile, the Trump administration wins a round in court over its requirements for hospitals to publicly reveal their prices, and the fight over the fate of the Affordable Care Act heats up once again. Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times, Paige Winfield Cunningham of The Washington Post and Kimberly Leonard of Business Insider join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss this and more. Also, Rovner interviews former Obama administration health aide Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, who has written a new book comparing international health systems.

Pandemic Forced Insurers To Pay For In-Home Treatments. Will They Disappear?

With stay-at-home orders in place, hospitals experimented with delivering many treatments to patients where they lived. They were a success. As society reopens, the return of old payment practices may prevent the adoption of this new, efficient model of care.

Citing COVID, Sutter Pushes To Revisit Landmark Antitrust Settlement

Six months after agreeing to a $575 million settlement in a closely watched antitrust case filed by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, Sutter Health has yet to pay a single dollar, and no operational changes have gone into effect. The nonprofit health care giant was accused of using its market dominance in Northern California to […]

Wealthy Hospital Taps Small Craft Breweries For Financial Aid To Buy Masks, Gloves

Although the federal government has poured billions of dollars into hospitals to defray their losses from the coronavirus outbreak, new streams of fundraising have emerged — including health worker-themed beer that adds “a drop in the bucket.”

At-Home Care Designed For COVID Likely Here To Stay At Cleveland Hospital

A public hospital in Cleveland has been trying to keep COVID patients out of its beds. It tried a number of innovations for developing better communication — even better relationships — with patients. Officials think this groundwork helped keep the outbreak at bay — and should be the new business model going forward.

Rapid Changes To Health System Spurred By COVID Might Be Here To Stay

The coronavirus pandemic has forced the nation’s doctors and hospitals to reevaluate how they work. At least three major changes may have a lasting impact.

COVID-19 Overwhelms Border ICUs

Some California hospitals near the Mexican border have received so many COVID-19 patients the past few weeks that they have had to divert some to other facilities. Hospital officials say most of the infected patients are U.S. citizens or legal residents who live in, or recently traveled to, Mexico and came to the U.S. for care.

Bringing ‘Poogie’ Home: Hospice In The Time Of COVID-19

One family took up the challenge of taking their mother, who had serious medical problems and the coronavirus, from the hospital to die at home. But because of the risk of infection, home hospice can be a daunting experience.

COVID-Like Cough Sent Him To ER — Where He Got A $3,278 Bill

A dad in Denver tried to do everything right when COVID symptoms surfaced. Still, he ended up with a huge bill from an insurer that had said it waived cost sharing for coronavirus treatment. What gives?

How Have Health Care Utilization and Spending Changed So Far During the Coronavirus Pandemic?

This chart collection summarizes what is known so far about how health costs and utilization have changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Health spending is on track to be somewhat lower in 2020 than in 2019 – the first time that’s happened since the gov…