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Markian Hawryluk was a senior Colorado correspondent for Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½Ò•îl Health News until he retired in January 2024.
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Critics were ready to bury the state’s new health insurance plans, based on a public option, when 2023 rate hikes were announced, but officials are confident people will be drawn to the plans’ benefits.
State employees could receive checks ranging from $50 to thousands of dollars if they choose the right provider.
The good, the bad, and the unknown about the Centennial State’s proposal to decriminalize and regulate magic mushrooms and plant-based psychedelics.
Investors are banking on increased demand in death care services as 73 million baby boomers near the end of their lives.
The National Weather Service is now gauging heat risk in a way that better suits Colorado as summers in the Centennial State get hotter and longer.
Private equity firms are seeing opportunities for profit in hospice care, once the domain of nonprofit organizations. The investment companies are transforming the industry — and might be jeopardizing patient care — in the process.
Petitions for protective orders under Colorado’s red flag law have been filed in more than half the counties that opposed it and declared themselves “Second Amendment sanctuaries.â€
Hispanic residents have long been among the least likely to have health insurance — in Colorado and across the country — in part because of unauthorized immigrants. The state is expanding coverage to some of them, although the change runs up against lingering fears about the use of public benefits.
Colorado lawmakers approved a measure that will make it easier for people to fix their power wheelchairs when they wear out or break down, but arcane regulations and manufacturers create high hurdles for nationwide reform.
Colorado is requiring insurers that offer public option plans to collect demographic data on health providers, including race and sexual orientation. The aim is to connect patients with the right provider, but providers are worried about their privacy.
The pandemic has shown that loosening the strict regulations on distributing methadone helps people recovering from addiction stay in treatment. But clinics with a financial stake in keeping the status quo don’t want to make permanent changes.
Stan Thomas’ wife, Monica Melkonian, was one of only nine people in the U.S. confirmed to have died from vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia, a rare side effect associated with the Johnson & Johnson covid vaccine. For the first time, Thomas shares her story of how excited she was to get the shot, how she died, and why he remains firmly pro-vaccine.
Washington was the first state in the U.S. to introduce a public option for health insurance, but the rollout hasn’t been smooth. Other states with public options in the works are taking notice.
Service dogs can help people with ailments from autism to epilepsy, but a trained dog can cost up to $40,000 — and insurance won’t cover it.
Disasters have previously prompted special enrollment periods in California, Maine, and the South. Now, Colorado is extending the state insurance marketplace sign-up period by two months.
Predominantly Black and Hispanic urban areas are more likely than white neighborhoods to see local pharmacies close and are more likely to be pharmacy deserts. In Chicago, one pharmacist is bucking the trend, operating the drugstore his father opened in the 1960s in a Black neighborhood.
Stores like Walmart and Shopko opened pharmacies in small towns, either buying out the local pharmacy or driving it out of business. What happens when those chains later withdraw, leaving communities with no pharmacy?
Independent pharmacists who want to retire often have trouble attracting new pharmacists to take over their practices, particularly in rural areas. That can cause smaller towns to lose their pharmacies. With many pharmacists near retirement, the problem may only get worse.
More than 1,000 independent rural pharmacies have closed since 2003, leaving 630 communities with no retail drugstore. As 41 million people stuck in pharmacy deserts make do, the remaining drugstores struggle to survive.
Pharmacy benefit managers have curtailed in-person audits of pharmacy claims during the pandemic, switching to virtual audits done by computer. That has markedly increased the number of claims they can review — and the chances for payment denials — squeezing pharmacies and bringing in more cash for the benefit companies.
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