After Appalachian Hospitals Merged Into a Monopoly, Their ERs Slowed to a Crawl
Ballad Health was granted the nation鈥檚 largest state-sanctioned hospital monopoly in 2018. Since then, its emergency rooms have become more than three times as slow.
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Ballad Health was granted the nation鈥檚 largest state-sanctioned hospital monopoly in 2018. Since then, its emergency rooms have become more than three times as slow.
For years, addiction response teams have traveled around Florida to connect people who have overdosed with resources and recovery centers. Now, a handful have a new tool in their kit: buprenorphine, which can help prevent the cravings and withdrawal symptoms that lead to more drug use.
Most healthy men produce sufficient testosterone as they age. Yet online ads and telehealth sites are promoting testosterone drugs with flawed promises of boosting libido and busting stomach fat.
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp鈥檚 Georgia Pathways to Coverage program has seen anemic enrollment while chalking up millions in start-up costs 鈥 largely in technology and consulting fees. Critics say the money鈥檚 being wasted on a costly and ineffective alternative to Obamacare鈥檚 Medicaid expansion.
As money flows to abortion rights initiatives in states, some donors focus on where anger over the "Dobbs" ruling could propel voter turnout and spur Democratic victories up and down the ballot, including in key Senate races and the White House.
Demand for help monitoring patients鈥 vital signs remotely has taken off since a Medicare change in 2019. Dozens of companies now push the service to help overburdened primary care doctors 鈥 and as a revenue stream. But some policy experts say its growth has outpaced oversight and evidence of effectiveness.
New federal funds aim to address an array of problems created by highway construction in minority neighborhoods. These are economic, social, and, perhaps above all, public health problems. In New Orleans鈥 Treme neighborhood, competing plans for how to deal with harm done by the Claiborne Expressway reveal the challenge of how to mitigate them meaningfully.
Years of struggle prepared residents in Cabell County, West Virginia, to confront the latest wave of the opioid epidemic as mixtures of fentanyl and other drugs claim lives nationwide.
Framed in the rhetoric of choice, Tennessee鈥檚 new law governing childhood vaccinations is among more than a dozen recently passed or pending nationwide that set parental freedom against community and children鈥檚 health.
Price worries, bureaucratic obstacles, and 鈥淚鈥檓-over-covid-itis鈥 slow uptake of a drug that鈥檚 complicated to take but often effective.
The cyberattack on a unit of UnitedHealth Group鈥檚 Optum division is the worst on the health care industry in U.S. history, hospitals say. Providers struggling to get paid for care say the response by the insurer and the Biden administration has been inadequate.
At last, Congress is getting half of its annual spending bills across the finish line, albeit five months after the start of the fiscal year. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden delivers his annual State of the Union address, an over-the-counter birth control pill is (finally) available, and controversy erupts over new public health guidelines for covid-19 isolation. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet, and Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call join 杨贵妃传媒視頻 Health News鈥 Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Neera Tanden, the White House domestic policy adviser, about Biden鈥檚 health agenda. Plus, for 鈥渆xtra credit,鈥 the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week that they think you should read, too.
A recently unsealed lawsuit alleges Aledade Inc. developed billing software that boosted revenues by making patients appear sicker than they were.
A mathematical model designed to direct spending of opioid settlement funds is at the center of a debate over whether to invest in technology to guide long-term decisions or focus on the immediate needs of people in addiction.
The presidential election is likely to turn on the simple question of whether Americans want Donald Trump back in the White House. But health care tops the list of household financial worries for adults from both parties.
Lawmakers in Congress and state legislatures are scrambling to react to the ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court that frozen embryos created for in vitro fertilization are legally children. Abortion opponents are divided among themselves, with some supporting full 鈥減ersonhood鈥 for fertilized eggs, while others support IVF as a moral way to have children. Rachel Cohrs of Stat, Riley Griffin of Bloomberg News, and Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins University schools of nursing and public health and Politico Magazine join 杨贵妃传媒視頻 Health News鈥 Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews University of Pittsburgh law professor Greer Donley, who explains how a 150-year-old anti-vice law that鈥檚 still on the books could be used to ban abortion nationwide. Plus, for 鈥渆xtra credit,鈥 the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week that they think you should read, too.
The Environmental Protection Agency is tightening regulation of ethylene oxide, a carcinogenic gas used to sterilize medical devices. The agency is trying to balance the interests of the health care industry supply chain with those of communities where the gas creates airborne health risks.
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 鈥渟ex-designated spaces,鈥 including domestic violence shelters and crisis centers, which experts say could violate anti-discrimination laws and jeopardize federal funding.
Change Healthcare, a firm recently bought by insurance giant UnitedHealth Group, reportedly suffered a cyberattack. The company processes 14 billion transactions annually, including payments and requests for insurance authorizations.
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