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Medical bills can add stress to the already stressful experience of dealing with a medical crisis. And if you can鈥檛 pay those bills, they can linger, wreaking havoc on your financial goals and credit. Here鈥檚 how to protect yourself.
Whether a simple operation is performed under the auspices of a hospital or at an independent surgery center can make a huge difference in cost.
Medical debt is most prevalent in the Southeast, where states have not expanded Medicaid and have few consumer protection laws. Now, North Carolina is considering two bills that could change that, making the state a leader in protecting patients from high medical bills.
KHN and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Here鈥檚 a collection of their appearances.
The U.S. health system now produces debt on a mass scale, a new investigation shows. Patients face gut-wrenching sacrifices.
Noble Health swept into two small Missouri towns promising to save their hospitals. Instead, workers and vendors say it stopped paying bills and government inspectors found it put patients at risk. Within two years 鈥 after taking millions in federal covid relief and big administrative fees 鈥 it locked the doors.
The U.S. House passed a package of bills seeking to keep some guns out of the hands of children and teenagers, but its fate in the Senate remains a big question mark. Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission takes on drug and hospital prices. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, and Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico join KHN鈥檚 Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Cori Uccello of the American Academy of Actuaries about the most recent report from Medicare鈥檚 trustees board.
Stemming gun violence is back on the legislative agenda following three mass shootings in less than a month, but it鈥檚 hard to predict success when so many previous efforts have failed. Meanwhile, lawmakers must soon decide if they will extend current premium subsidies for those buying health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, and the Biden administration acts, belatedly, on Medicare premiums. Margot Sanger-Katz of the New York Times, Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call, and Rachel Cohrs of Stat News join KHN鈥檚 Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews KHN鈥檚 Michelle Andrews, who reported and wrote the latest KHN-NPR 鈥淏ill of the Month鈥 episode about a too-common problem: denial of no-cost preventive care for a colonoscopy under the Affordable Care Act.
The nation鈥檚 largest supplier of platelets is moving to a method it says is easier for hospitals, but one that sharply raises costs, leading some centers to demand more options.
A Massachusetts health care cost watchdog agency helped block plans of the state鈥檚 largest hospital system to expand into the suburbs. Now, other states are looking at whether Massachusetts鈥 decade-old model of controlling health costs is worth emulating.
A 124-year-old hospital in a midsize Rust Belt city in Indiana will soon be torn down, despite protests from residents and city officials decrying the loss of local health services. The Catholic hospital system said it is downsizing the 226-bed hospital because of a lack of demand for inpatient care, as the organization has been building new hospitals in wealthier suburbs.
Dying malls have turned out to be good places to care for the living. During the pandemic, mall-to-medicine transitions accelerated, with at least 10 health systems moving in where retail has moved out.
More people have visited emergency departments for eating disorders during the pandemic. Those living in rural areas have limited pathways to treatment.
To contain the spread of covid, hospitals and nursing homes barred visits. The separation and isolation took a toll on patients and families. Florida is one of the latest states to ensure access for visitors.
About 50% of the covid-19 patients who got the last-ditch life support treatment at Vanderbilt University Medical Center died. Researchers wanted to know what happened to the many patients they had to turn away because ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) machines and the specialized staffers needed were in short supply. The grim answer: 90% of those turned away perished.
A bill one family considered paid wrongfully resurfaced, resurrecting painful memories. It鈥檚 a scenario that鈥檚 not uncommon but grievously unsettling.
Diagnosed with aggressive leukemia on a Western trip, a young man thought his insurance would cover an air ambulance ride home to North Carolina. Instead, questions about medical necessity left him with an astronomical bill.
Nashville nurse RaDonda Vaught is charged with reckless homicide for giving the wrong medication to a patient at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Former nurse RaDonda Vaught is on trial for reckless homicide, and her case raises consequential questions about how nurses use computerized medication-dispensing cabinets.
A backlog at Montana鈥檚 psychiatric hospital for those facing criminal charges has left people with serious mental illness behind bars for months without adequate treatment. In some cases, judges have freed defendants over due-process violations.
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