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Insurance agents say itâs too easy to access consumer information on the Affordable Care Act federal marketplace. Policyholders can lose their doctors and access to prescriptions. Some end up owing back taxes.
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 âsex-designated spaces,â including domestic violence shelters and crisis centers, which experts say could violate anti-discrimination laws and jeopardize federal funding.
South Dakota allows doctors to terminate a pregnancy only if a patientâs life is in jeopardy. Lawmakers say a government-created video would clarify what that exception actually means.
Doctors, patients, and hospitals have railed for years about the prior authorization processes that health insurers use to decide whether theyâll pay for patientsâ drugs or medical procedures. The Biden administration announced a crackdown in January, but some state lawmakers are looking to go further.
While more Medicaid beneficiaries have been purged in the span of a year than ever before, enrollment is on track to settle at pre-pandemic levels.
Hospitals nationwide face growing scrutiny over how they secure payment from patients, but at one community hospital, the debt collection machine has been quietly humming along for decades.
Delaying cancer treatment can be deadly â which makes the roadblock-riddled process that health insurers use to approve or deny care particularly daunting for oncology patients.
Ohio is the latest state where voters have directly weighed in on abortion, and the next wave of such ballot measures is in the works in at least 11 other states, including Missouri.
As Medicaid programs across the nation review enrollees' status in the wake of the pandemic, patients struggle to navigate the upheaval.
Native Americans and rural residents are underrepresented in medical schools. But in this new program, 25% of students are Indigenous and half are from rural areas.
âPeople want covid-19 to be in the rearview mirror,â one nursing home official says. Faced with a slow rollout of the updated covid vaccines, and without state mandates for workers to get vaccinated, most skilled nursing facilities are relying on persuasion to boost vaccination rates among staff and residents.
A Tulsa-based gas station chain is using its knowledge of how to serve customers and locate shops in easy-to-find spots to enter the urgent care industry, which has doubled in size over the past decade. Experts question how the explosion of convenient clinics will affect care costs and wait times.
A little-noticed provision of sweeping legislation to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration would make it easier to fly human organs from donor to recipient.
The number of DOs is surging, and more than half of them practice in primary care, including in rural areas hit hard by doctor shortages.
Montana and other states are trying to increase the number of nurses specially trained to treat survivors of sexual assault.
Billions of dollars are headed to state and local governments to address the opioid crisis. Policy experts and advocates expect the federal government to play a role in overseeing the use of the money. Failure to do so, they say, could lead to wasted opportunities. And, since Medicaid helps pay health care costs, the feds could have a claim to portions of statesâ opioid settlements.
Despite record enrollment in health insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act, some consumers who bought coverage and agents who helped them do so have had a tough start to the new year: Many say itâs hard to find an in-network doctor or hospital.
Pharmaceutical companies have put the brakes on many statesâ ability to execute prisoners using lethal injections. Lacking alternatives, states are trying to keep the public from learning details about how they carry out executions.
Itâs about the money â on both sides â as arguments swirl about patient safety, rising prices, and paying back on-the-job training.
Hospitals in New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma are among the first to apply for a new rural hospital payment model that shifts the focus of services away from overnight stays to outpatient and emergency care. Still, experts say the law needs to be amended to provide the right mix of care for rural communities.
Š 2026 KFF