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Brand-name drug prices in the U.S. ā more than three times the price in other developed countries ā are related neither to the amount of research and development required to bring them to market nor their therapeutic value, recent research shows. Have drugmakers overplayed their hand?
Pueblo, Colorado, residents have higher-than-average medical debt, while the cityās two tax-exempt hospitals provide relatively low levels of charity care.
The No Surprises Act has helped rein in out-of-network medical bills, but ground ambulances are a costly exception. Hear why this service can still hit patients with big bills and what to do if you get one.
An analysis of court records by the state treasurer and Duke researchers finds Atrium Health, originally a public hospital system, accounted for almost a third of the legal actions against North Carolina patients over roughly five years.
A Biden administration proposal would help standardize the data on prices that hospitals provide to patients, increase its usefulness to consumers, and boost enforcement. Previous rules gave hospitals too many loopholes.
Ńī¹óåś“«Ć½Ņīl Health News and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Hereās a collection of their appearances.
After decades of unchecked mergers, health care is the land of giants, with huge medical systems monopolizing care in many cities, states, and even whole regions of the country. This decreases patient choice, impedes innovation, erodes quality of care, and raises prices. And federal regulators have been slow to act.
Clinics serving Alzheimerās patients are working out the details of who will get treated with the new drug Leqembi. It wonāt be for everyone with memory-loss symptoms.
Within two years of North Carolinaās public university system going into business with AccessOne to finance patientsā payment plans, nearly half of its patients were in loans that charged interest. As federal scrutiny increases on lenders, Ńī¹óåś“«Ć½Ņīl Health News is sharing that contract and others obtained through public records requests.
The annual cost of lecanemab treatment quadruples if the expense of brain scans to monitor for bleeds and other associated care is factored in. The full financial toll likely puts it beyond reach for low-income seniors at risk of Alzheimerās, experts say.
Consumers should know that this type of fraud can happen, whether from a large-scale breach or theft of an individualās data. The result could be thousands of dollars in medical bills.
Ńī¹óåś“«Ć½Ņīl Health News and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Hereās a collection of their appearances.
Medicare was supposed to cover the entire cost of his procedure. But after the anesthesia provider failed to file its claims in a timely manner, it billed the patient instead.
President Joe Biden is kicking off his reelection campaign in part by trying to finish a decades-long effort to establish parity in insurance benefits between mental and physical health. Meanwhile, House Republicans are working to add abortion and other contentious amendments to must-pass spending bills. Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico, Anna Edney of Bloomberg, and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join Ńī¹óåś“«Ć½Ņīl Health Newsā chief Washington correspondent, Julie Rovner, to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Ńī¹óåś“«Ć½Ņīl Health Newsā CĆ©line Gounder about her podcast āEpidemic.ā The new season focuses on the successful public health effort to eradicate smallpox.
Californiaās health insurance exchange will reduce how much some patients pay for care next year, including hospital deductibles, appointment copays, and prescription drugs. Lawmakers pressed Gov. Gavin Newsom to make good on a four-year-old pledge to use proceeds from a tax penalty on uninsured people to help people pay for treatment.
Although nearly 40% of Americans 60 and older are obese, Medicare doesnāt cover weight loss medications. Meanwhile, studies havenāt thoroughly examined new drugsā impact on older adults.
House Republican legislation promises more health insurance options but fewer protections, even as the Biden administration seeks to rein in short-term plans, which were expanded in the Trump era.
Ńī¹óåś“«Ć½Ņīl Health News and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Hereās a collection of their appearances.
Doctors and hospitals hold an exalted position in American life, retaining public confidence even as other institutions such as government, law enforcement, and the media are losing peopleās trust. But with health care debt out of hand, medical providers risk their good standing.
As politicians bash privately run hospitals for their aggressive debt collection tactics, consumer advocates say one North Carolina familyās six-figure medical bill is an example of how state attorneys general and state-operated hospitals also can harm patients financially.
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