KHN

Long-term relationships between patients and doctors often enrich the quality of care and create deep emotional bonds. When the doctors retire or move on, saying goodbye can be hard.

Federally qualified health centers from California to Michigan are mired in a bureaucratic mess over how they should be paid under Medicaid for each dose of covid vaccine given. In California alone, clinics await reimbursement for at least 1 million shots, causing a “massive cash flow problem.”

Health care workers already bore the brunt of workplace violence in the U.S. Now, tensions from an exhausting pandemic are spilling over into hospitals.

Following a February KHN investigation into covid vaccine accessibility, the Department of Justice reached an agreement with five New York government agencies to make their websites accessible to people who are visually impaired.

The American Rescue Plan Act, passed by Congress in March, provides $130 billion to cities, counties and tribes — with few restrictions on how the money can be spent.

As scientists argue whether a previous bout of covid offers the same amount of protection as vaccinations, people turn to the courts to decide.

The polarizing abortion issue threatens to tie up Congress, the Supreme Court and the states for the coming year. Meanwhile, Congress kicks the can down the road to December on settling its spending priorities. Joanne Kenen of Politico and the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Yasmeen Abutaleb of The Washington Post and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more.
Also this week, Rovner interviews KHN’s Aneri Pattani, who delivered the latest KHN-NPR “Bill of the Month” episode about a covid test that cost as much as a luxury car.

At issue is whether transplant patients who refuse the shots are not only putting themselves at greater risk for serious illness and death from covid-19, but also squandering scarce organs that could benefit others.

Dr. Francis Collins, who announced he is stepping down as chief of the National Institutes of Health, used his communication skills and political insights to help protect the highly acclaimed federal research institutes through difficult times.

After experiencing multiple quarantines and school closures in less than two months, covid vaccine approvals for 5- to 11-year-olds can’t come soon enough for a KHN editor in Montana.

In Maryland, it’s now illegal for a hospital to sue a patient who qualifies for charity care. But in many other states, that’s still a thing.

Even though they perform the same intimate tasks as nursing home and hospital workers, in-home health aides initially were left out of California’s vaccine mandate. They must be fully vaccinated by Nov. 30.

Patients are caught in the middle as insurers clamp down on paying for treatments or force prior authorizations for care.

Dr. Paula Braveman, director of UCSF’s Center on Social Disparities in Health, shares her insights on a provocative new study that identifies racism as a decisive factor in the gap in preterm birth rates between Black and white women.

The covid pandemic has caused millions of people, particularly LGBTQ adults, to lose their jobs and enroll in Medicaid or insurance through the Affordable Care Act. Yet these plans often don’t fully cover the basics needed by many transgender Americans, such as injectable estrogen, a hormone therapy commonly used by trans women.

An estimated 300,000 people were held in solitary confinement in U.S. jails and prisons at the height of the pandemic. An international movement is pushing to limit the form of incarceration due to its damaging physical and psychological effects.

Opponents of free needle programs in California are using environmental regulations to shut them down. On Monday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that will end that strategy.

As the pandemic has raged so has the country’s drug epidemic. California is looking to a controversial solution for certain drug users, but despite its effectiveness, critics have scoffed at the idea calling it unethical or a bribe.

The Biden administration is requiring workers at health care facilities that accept Medicare and Medicaid payments to be vaccinated. For the minority of nursing students who have refused a shot, the new policy could mean they can’t get the training they need in a hospital or other health care venue.

Officials are enthusiastic about the Allcove initiative, modeled on an Australian program. But it will need to show effectiveness and find funding.