Federally qualified health centers from California to Michigan are mired in a bureaucratic mess over how they should be paid under Medicaid for each dose of covid vaccine given. In California alone, clinics await reimbursement for at least 1 million shots, causing a “massive cash flow problem.”
Health care workers already bore the brunt of workplace violence in the U.S. Now, tensions from an exhausting pandemic are spilling over into hospitals.
At issue is whether transplant patients who refuse the shots are not only putting themselves at greater risk for serious illness and death from covid-19, but also squandering scarce organs that could benefit others.
Following a February KHN investigation into covid vaccine accessibility, the Department of Justice reached an agreement with five New York government agencies to make their websites accessible to people who are visually impaired.
As scientists argue whether a previous bout of covid offers the same amount of protection as vaccinations, people turn to the courts to decide.
The American Rescue Plan Act, passed by Congress in March, provides $130 billion to cities, counties and tribes — with few restrictions on how the money can be spent.
In Maryland, it’s now illegal for a hospital to sue a patient who qualifies for charity care. But in many other states, that’s still a thing.
After experiencing multiple quarantines and school closures in less than two months, covid vaccine approvals for 5- to 11-year-olds can’t come soon enough for a KHN editor in Montana.
Opponents of free needle programs in California are using environmental regulations to shut them down. On Monday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that will end that strategy.
Even though they perform the same intimate tasks as nursing home and hospital workers, in-home health aides initially were left out of California’s vaccine mandate. They must be fully vaccinated by Nov. 30.
