It’s called an urgent care emergency center — but which is it?
by Renuka Rayasam KFF Health News One evening last December, Tieqiao Zhang felt severe stomach pain. After it subsided later that night, he thought it might be food poisoning. When…
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Medicaid for millions in America hinges on Deloitte-run systems plagued by errors
by Rachana Pradhan and Samantha Liss KFF Health News Deloitte, a global consultancy that reported revenue last year of $65 billion, pulls in billions of dollars from states and the…
‘We’re flying blind’: CDC has 1M bird flu tests ready, but experts see repeat of COVID missteps
by Amy Maxmen KFF Health News It’s been nearly three months since the U.S. government announced an outbreak of the bird flu virus on dairy farms. The World Health Organization…
California leaders tussle with health industry over billions of new dollars for Medi-Cal
by Bernard J. Wolfson KFF Health News Gov. Gavin Newsom, state lawmakers, and health industry leaders have a small window to reach an agreement on billions of new dollars for…
Older women are different than older men. Their health Is woefully understudied
by Judith Graham California Healthline Medical research has shortchanged women for decades. This is particularly true of older women, leaving physicians without critically important information about how to best manage…
California loops in AI to translate health care information
Tener gripe, tener gripa, engriparse, agriparse, estar agripado, estar griposo, agarrar la gripe, coger la influenza. In Spanish, there are at least a dozen ways to say someone has the…
California lawmakers preserve aid to older, disabled immigrants
California lawmakers on Thursday, June 14 passed a 2024-25 budget that rejected Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to cut in-home supportive services for low-income older, blind, and disabled immigrants lacking legal…
White House enlists doctors and hospitals to combat gun violence
by Samantha Young KFF Health News The White House is calling on hospital executives, doctors, and other health care leaders to take bolder steps to prevent gun violence by gathering…
Biden administration advances plan to remove medical debt from credit scores
Americans would no longer have to worry about medical debts dragging down their credit scores under federal regulations proposed on Tuesday, June 11 by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. If…
Presidential election could decide fate of extra Obamacare subsidies
by Andy Miller KFF Health News When Cassie Cox ended up in the emergency room in January, the Bainbridge, Georgia, resident was grateful for the Obamacare insurance policy she had…
New help for dealing with aggression in people with dementia
Caring for older adults with dementia is stressful, especially when they become physically or verbally aggressive, wander away from home, develop paranoia or hallucinations, engage in inappropriate or repetitive behaviors,…
4 ways vaccine skeptics mislead you on measles and more
by Amy Maxmen and Céline Gounder KFF Health News Measles is on the rise in the United States. In the first quarter of this year, the number of cases was…
Los Angeles County launches ambitious plan to tackle medical debt
LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County has launched one of the most ambitious efforts in the nation to tackle medical debt, targeting hospitals for their role in feeding a $2.9…
High price of popular diabetes drugs deprives low-income people of effective treatment
For the past year and a half, Tandra Cooper Harris and her husband, Marcus, who both have diabetes, have struggled to fill their prescriptions for the medications they need to…
The lure of specialty medicine pulls nurse practitioners from primary care
by Michelle Andrews KFF Health News For many patients, seeing a nurse practitioner has become a routine part of primary care, in which these “NPs” often perform the same tasks…
Gov. Newsom boosted Califonia’s public health budget during Covid. Now he wants to cut it
When a doctor in Pasadena, California, reported in October that a hospital patient was exhibiting classic symptoms of dengue fever, such as vomiting, a rash, and bone and joint pain,…
California’s $12 billion Medicaid makeover banks on nonprofits’ buy-in
by Angela Hart KFF Health News TURLOCK — For much of his young life, Jorge Sanchez regularly gasped for air, at times coughing so violently that he’d almost throw up….
California floats extending health insurance subsidies to all adult immigrants
Marisol Pantoja Toribio found a lump in her breast in early January. Uninsured and living in California without legal status and without her family, the usually happy-go-lucky 43-year-old quickly realized…
‘Breaking a promise’: California deficit could halt raises for disability workers
by Vanessa Sanchez KFF Health News SACRAMENTO — Families of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities say Gov. Gavin Newsom is reneging on a scheduled raise for the workers who…
Sign here? Financial agreements may leave doctors in the driver’s seat
Cass Smith-Collins jumped through hoops to get the surgery that would match his chest to his gender. Living in Las Vegas and then 50, he finally felt safe enough to…
WHO overturns dogma on airborne disease spread. The CDC might not act on it.
The World Health Organization has issued a report that transforms how the world understands respiratory infections like COVID-19, influenza, and measles. Motivated by grave missteps in the pandemic, the WHO…
Millions were booted from Medicaid. The insurers that run it gained Medicaid revenue anyway
by Phil Galewitz KFF Health News Private Medicaid health plans lost millions of members in the past year as pandemic protections that prohibited states from dropping anyone from the government…
Exposed to Agent Orange at US bases, veterans face cancer without VA compensation
As a young GI at Fort Ord in Monterey County, California, Dean Osborn spent much of his time in the oceanside woodlands, training on soil and guzzling water from streams…
California is investing $500M in therapy apps for youth
by Molly Castle Work California Healthline Advocates fear it won’t pay off With little pomp, California launched two apps at the start of the year offering free behavioral health services…
Unsheltered people are losing Medicaid in redetermination mix-ups
by Aaron Bolton, MTPR KFF Health News KALISPELL — On a cold February morning at the Flathead Warming Center, Tashya Evans waited for help with her Medicaid application as others…
Biden administration sets higher staffing mandates
Most nursing homes don’t meet them The Biden administration finalized nursing home staffing rules Monday, April 22 that will require thousands of them to hire more nurses and aides —…
Medical providers still grappling with UnitedHealth cyberattack: ‘More devastating than COVID’
by Samantha Liss KFF Health News Two months after a cyberattack on a UnitedHealth Group subsidiary halted payments to some doctors, medical providers say they’re still grappling with the fallout,…
Newsom offers a compromise to protect indoor workers from heat
by Samantha Young KFF Health News SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration has compromised on long-sought rules that would protect indoor workers from extreme heat, saying tens of thousands of…
Lawsuit alleges Obamacare plan-switching scheme targeted low-income consumers
by Julie Appleby KFF Health News A wide-ranging lawsuit filed on Friday, April 12 outlines a moneymaking scheme by which large insurance sales agency call centers enrolled people into Affordable…
Nearly 1 in 4 adults dumped from Medicaid are now uninsured, survey finds
by Phil Galewitz KFF Health News Nearly a quarter of adults disenrolled from Medicaid in the past year say they are now uninsured, according to a survey released Friday that…