The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.
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Health researchers are among the voices calling for police to stop using tear gas and pepper spray on protesters, because these chemical irritants can damage the body in ways that can spread the coronavirus and increase the severity of COVID-19. One example: Tear gas and pepper spray can sow confusion and panic in a crowd, causing people to rip off their masks and touch their faces, leading to more contamination.
Some California hospitals near the Mexican border have received so many COVID-19 patients the past few weeks that they have had to divert some to other facilities. Hospital officials say most of the infected patients are U.S. citizens or legal residents who live in, or recently traveled to, Mexico and came to the U.S. for care.
Of those who went without seeing a doctor or other medical provider, 11% experienced a worsened medical condition, according to the poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation. In addition, nearly 40% said stress related to the coronavirus crisis has negatively impacted their mental health.
A dad in Denver tried to do everything right when COVID symptoms surfaced. Still, he ended up with a huge bill from an insurer that had said it waived cost sharing for coronavirus treatment. What gives?
Emergency department volumes are down 40 to 50 percent across the country. Doctors worry a new wave of cardiac patients is headed their way 鈥 people who have delayed care and will be sicker and more injured when they finally seek care.
Daisy Doronila had a different perspective than most who worked at the Hudson County Correctional Facility, a New Jersey lockup 11 miles from Manhattan. It was a place where the veteran nurse could put her Catholic faith into action, showing kindness to marginalized people.
Nurse Vianna Thompson, 52, spent two night shifts caring for a fellow Veterans Affairs health care worker who was dying from COVID-19. Two weeks later, she too was lying in a hospital intensive care unit, with a co-worker holding her hand as she died.
Dr. J. Ronald Verrier, a surgeon at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, spent the final weeks of his audacious, unfinished life tending to a torrent of patients inflicted with COVID-19. He died April 8 at Mount Sinai South Nassau Hospital in Oceanside, New York, at age 59, after falling ill from the novel coronavirus.
Jeff Baumbach, 57, was a seasoned nurse of 28 years when the novel coronavirus began to circulate in California. He鈥檇 worked in the ER, the ICU and on a cardiac floor. Hepatitis and tuberculosis had been around over the years but never posed a major concern.
Lack of protective gear and fears about all the unknown aspects of COVID-19 are parts of the mosaic of stress facing doctors and nurses on the front lines of the pandemic.
Frank Gabrin knew the stakes of his job. What he found unsettling was having to reuse personal protective gear while caring for coronavirus patients.
Most of the attention in the COVID-19 pandemic has been on how the virus affects the lungs. But evidence shows that up to 1 in 5 hospitalized patients have signs of heart damage and many are dying due to heart problems.
Newsletter editor Brianna Labuskes wades through hundreds of health care policy stories each week, so you don't have to.
Newsletter editor Brianna Labuskes wades through hundreds of health care policy stories each week, so you don't have to.
Until very recently, the separate company that runs the emergency department at Nashville General Hospital in Tennessee was continuing to haul patients who couldn't pay medical bills into court.
Doctors and other clinicians say they're enduring moral injury because the business of health care interferes with patient care.
A young man averted medical disaster after a friend took him to the nearest hospital just before his appendix burst. But more than a year later, he鈥檚 still facing a $28,000 balance bill for his out-of-network surgery.
A new state law limits what consumers owe if they鈥檙e transported by an air ambulance that鈥檚 not part of their insurance network to the amount that they鈥檇 be charged if they used an in-network provider. But the law won鈥檛 protect millions of consumers whose health plans aren鈥檛 regulated by the state.
Nearly a decade ago, Dr. Jeffrey Brenner and his Camden Coalition appeared to have an answer to remake American health care: Treat the sickest and most expensive patients. But a rigorous study in the New England Journal of Medicine shows the approach doesn鈥檛 save money. 鈥淲e built a brilliant intervention to navigate people to nowhere,鈥 Brenner tells the 鈥淭radeoffs鈥 podcast.
People with sickle cell disease aren't fueling the opioid crisis, research shows. Yet some ER doctors still treat patients seeking relief for agonizing sickle cell crises as potential addicts.
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