Native American Patients Are Sent to Collections for Debts the Government Owes
Tescha Hawley learned that hospital bills from her son’s birth had been sent to debt collectors only when she checked her credit score while attending a home-buying class. The new mom’s plans to buy a house stalled. Hawley said she didn’t owe those thousands of dollars in debts. The federal government did.Hawley, a citizen of…
Former Montana Health Staffer Rebukes Oversight Rules as a Hospital ‘Wish List’
A former Montana health department staffer who described himself as the lead author of legislation to scrutinize nonprofit hospitals’ charitable acts said new rules implementing the bill amounted to a hospital “wish list” and that the state needs to go back to the drawing board. The Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services recently…
Six Years Into an Appalachia Hospital Monopoly, Patients Are Fearful and Furious
KINGSPORT, Tenn. — Jerry Qualls had a heart attack in 2022 and was rushed by ambulance to Holston Valley Medical Center, where he was hospitalized for a week and kept alive by a ventilator and blood pump, according to his medical records. His wife, Katherine Qualls, said his doctors offered little hope. In an interview…
Nursing Homes Fell Behind on Vaccinating Patients for Covid
It seems no one is taking covid-19 seriously anymore, said Mollee Loveland, a nursing home aide who lives outside Pittsburgh. Loveland has seen patients and coworkers at the nursing home where she works die from the viral disease. Now she has a new worry: bringing home the coronavirus and unwittingly infecting her infant daughter, Maya,…
California amplió el Medi-Cal a todos los residentes más allá de su estatus migratorio. Los resultados son desiguales.
Este año, California ha dado el último paso para abrir el Medi-Cal, su programa de Medicaid, a todos los residentes que reúnan los requisitos, independientemente de su estatus migratorio. Es una expansión significativa para un programa de protección social que ya de por sí es masivo. El gasto anual de Medi-Cal asciende actualmente a $157.000…
Tribal Health Leaders Say Feds Haven’t Treated Syphilis Outbreak as a Public Health Emergency
Natalie Holt sees reminders nearly everywhere of the serious toll a years-long syphilis outbreak has taken in South Dakota. Scrambling to tamp down the spread of the devastating disease, public health officials are blasting messages to South Dakotans on billboards and television, urging people to get tested. Holt works in Aberdeen, a city of about…
How a Proposed Federal Heat Rule Might Have Saved These Workers’ Lives
On a sweltering afternoon in July 2020, Belinda Ramones got a call that her brother was in the hospital. The call was from a woman at the Florida landscaping business that he had joined that week, the Davey Tree Expert Co., Ramones said. By the time she arrived, she said, “My brother was swollen up…
Black Americans Still Suffer Worse Health. Here’s Why There’s So Little Progress
KINGSTREE, S.C. — One morning in late April, a small brick health clinic along the Thurgood Marshall Highway bustled with patients. There was Joshua McCray, 69, a public bus driver who, four years after catching covid-19, still is too weak to drive. Louvenia McKinney, 77, arrived complaining about shortness of breath. Ponzella McClary brought her…
PBM Math: Big Chains Are Paid $23.55 To Fill a Blood Pressure Rx. Small Drugstores? $1.51.
CUTHBERT, Ga. — While customers at Adams Family Pharmacy picked up their prescriptions on a hot summer day, some stopped in for coffee, ice cream, homemade cake, or cookies. It wasn’t a bake sale, but the sweets bring extra revenue as pharmacist and co-owner Nikki Bryant works to achieve profitability at her business on the…
Exclusive: Emails Reveal How Health Departments Struggle To Track Human Cases of Bird Flu
Bird flu cases have more than doubled in the country within a few weeks, but researchers can’t determine why the spike is happening because surveillance for human infections has been patchy for seven months. Just this week, California reported its 15th infection in dairy workers and Washington state reported seven probable cases in poultry workers.…