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Gloria Sachdev, a pharmacist by training, has spent years taking on the health care establishment in Indiana, working to pull down high hospital prices and make information public to patients. Now, in a newly created position in the governorâs Cabinet, sheâs no longer fighting from the outside.
Health leaders say a tool to boost medical coverage for Native Americans, a population that has long faced worse health outcomes than the rest of the nation, has been underused by many states and tribes since it was written into the Affordable Care Act more than a decade ago.
In the seventh year of Ńîšóĺú´ŤĂ˝Ňîl Health Newsâ âBill of the Monthâ series, patients shared their most perplexing, vexing, and downright expensive medical bills, and reporters analyzed $800,000 in charges â including more than $370,000 owed by 12 patients and their families.
The nationâs Catholic health systems were largely founded and led by nuns with a mission to serve the sick regardless of their creed or financial means. Today, no nuns run any U.S. Catholic health system, while many of these hospitals pull in billions, according to their financial reports.
In red and blue states, state lawmakers from both parties are expanding protections for patients burdened by medical debt.
The state has among the highest levels of medical debt in the country, data shows.
Clinics in states where most abortions are legal, such as Kansas and Illinois, are reporting an influx of inquiries from patients hundreds of miles away â and are expanding in response. Despite the Supreme Courtâs overturning of federal protections in 2022, abortions are now at their highest numbers in a decade.
911 outages have hit at least eight states this year. Theyâre emblematic of problems plaguing emergency response communications due in part to wide disparities in capabilities and funding.
Even when patients double-check that their care is covered by insurance, health providers often send them bills as they haggle with insurers over reimbursement, which can last for months. Itâs stressful and annoying â but legal.
Premenstrual dysphoric disorder is estimated to affect around 5% of people who menstruate, but a lack of research and limited awareness of menstrual disorders â even among health care providers â can make getting care difficult.
Provider groups are disappointed that the Federal Trade Commissionâs new rule may not protect those who work for nonprofit hospitals and health care facilities, which employ the largest number of medical professionals.
A federal program that helped pay for more than 23 million low-income householdsâ internet access runs out of money soon. The end of the subsidy launched earlier in the pandemic could have profound impacts on health care access.
Insurance agents say itâs too easy to access consumer information on the Affordable Care Act federal marketplace. Policyholders can lose their doctors and access to prescriptions. Some end up owing back taxes.
State lawmakers are resurrecting and expanding efforts to prohibit transgender people from using public restrooms and other spaces that match their gender. Some have sought to ban trans people from âsex-designated spaces,â including domestic violence shelters and crisis centers, which experts say could violate anti-discrimination laws and jeopardize federal funding.
South Dakota allows doctors to terminate a pregnancy only if a patientâs life is in jeopardy. Lawmakers say a government-created video would clarify what that exception actually means.
Doctors, patients, and hospitals have railed for years about the prior authorization processes that health insurers use to decide whether theyâll pay for patientsâ drugs or medical procedures. The Biden administration announced a crackdown in January, but some state lawmakers are looking to go further.
While more Medicaid beneficiaries have been purged in the span of a year than ever before, enrollment is on track to settle at pre-pandemic levels.
Hospitals nationwide face growing scrutiny over how they secure payment from patients, but at one community hospital, the debt collection machine has been quietly humming along for decades.
Delaying cancer treatment can be deadly â which makes the roadblock-riddled process that health insurers use to approve or deny care particularly daunting for oncology patients.
Ohio is the latest state where voters have directly weighed in on abortion, and the next wave of such ballot measures is in the works in at least 11 other states, including Missouri.
Š 2026 KFF