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This installment of InvestigateTV and Թϲ' “Costly Care” series delves into the lack of cost protections for patients who find themselves on the hook for an emergency ground ambulance ride.
With the rise of generative AI, people who once turned to “Dr. Google” to check on medical symptoms are now turning to chatbots. Researchers say the bots are often more accurate, but urge caution in the absence of any regulations.
Republicans in Congress have proposed substantial cuts to the budget of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, taking aim at one of former President Donald Trump’s major health programs: a push to end the HIV epidemic in the U.S.
Unsafe sleep environments are among the main reasons accidental suffocation or strangulation is a hard-to-solve public health problem.
An estimated 32% of adults in Logan County, West Virginia, have been diagnosed with depression, the highest rate in the United States, according to a recent CDC report.
Studies suggest official numbers vastly underestimate heat-related injuries and illness on the job. To institute protections, the government must calculate their cost — and the cost of inaction.
Mississippi has among the highest cervical cancer mortality rates in the U.S. When low-income women can't afford regular preventive care, much less gynecological visits, this highly preventable and treatable cancer becomes a killer.
The medical dangers of heat are real. But people often ignore public heat alerts or don't realize how vulnerable they are. A new alert system prompts clinicians to talk about heat with patients.
As high school graduates prepare to leave states like California that protect abortion rights for historically Black colleges in states where abortion is banned, they're getting ready to safeguard their reproductive health during college.
Where trees are growing — and who has access to their shade — affects health and well-being, especially in one of the hottest states in the country.
Թϲ and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
Though health policies in general got little airtime, the discussion of whether candidates support a federal abortion ban underscored how Republicans, in a post-Roe environment, face political challenges on the issue.
The first Republican presidential debate of the 2024 cycle took place without front-runner Donald Trump — and with hardly a mention of health issues save for abortion. Meanwhile, in Florida, patients dropped from the Medicaid program are suing the state for not giving them enough notice or a way to contest their being dropped from the program. Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times, Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico, and Victoria Knight of Axios join Թϲ’ Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Plus, for “extra credit,” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week they think you should read, too.
Studies show that high rates of Black fetal and infant deaths are largely preventable — and part of systemic failures that contribute to disproportionately high Black maternal mortality rates.
Prior authorization is a common tool used by health insurers for many tests, procedures, and prescriptions. Frustrated by the process, patients and doctors have turned to social media to publicly shame insurance companies and elevate their denials for further review.
Mandy Cohen, the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, earned praise for her leadership and communication as the face of North Carolina’s response to covid-19. People in the state’s most vulnerable communities tell a more complicated story.
No local hospital and anemic ambulance services mean residents in rural Pickens County, Alabama, are thrown into perilous situations when they have medical emergencies. It’s a kind of medical care roulette that has become a fact of life for rural Americans who live in ambulance deserts.
Chagas disease, caused by a parasite, affects people primarily in rural Latin America. But an estimated 300,000 residents of the U.S. have the disease, which can cause serious heart problems. Patient advocates call for much more aggressive efforts to fight it.
In early 2020, U.S. public health labs received covid-19 tests from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that were flawed, as a result of poor design and contamination. Now the CDC is overhauling its lab operations, but efforts to be better prepared for future threats won’t be easy, observers say.
Florida’s new immigration law requires hospitals to ask patients about their immigration status at admission and in emergency rooms, and report that information plus the cost of care for residents without legal status. Doctors and nurses who oppose the policy seem reluctant to criticize lawmakers for fear of political retribution.
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