Latest California Healthline Stories
Listen: How A ‘Hippie Clinic’ In San Francisco Inspired A Medical Philosophy
The Haight Ashbury Free Clinic still serves people living on the fringes in San Francisco. This radio story recounts its 51-year history.
Despite Prod By ACA, Tax-Exempt Hospitals Slow To Expand Community Benefits
Nationally, the ACA’s efforts to nudge nonprofit hospitals to provide more community-wide benefits have had limited success. Still, “California’s community benefits programs work well – and have since the 1990s,” a California Hospital Association official says.
Care Suffers As More Nursing Homes Feed Money Into Corporate Webs
Increasingly, owners of nursing homes outsource services to companies in which they also have financial interest or control. That allows the nursing homes to claim to be in the red while owners reap hidden profits.
Half Of Hospitals In Conn., Del. Hit By Medicare’s Safety Penalties
In California, Medicare penalized 30 percent of the hospitals it assessed. Seven states saw a third or more of their hospitals punished under the federal heath law’s campaign against hospital-acquired conditions.
Readers Have Bones To Pick, From Health System Flaws To Covering Marijuana Beat
Kaiser Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.
Terrifying Brush With Death Drives Doctor To Fight For Patients
Dr. Rana Awdish was completing a fellowship in critical care when she became critically ill herself. Now, she helps other doctors understand the patient’s perspective.
Trump Administration Relaxes Financial Penalties Against Nursing Homes
Medicare is discouraging regional offices from levying fines for “one-time mistakes” or from using daily fines that seek to put pressure on nursing homes to make changes.
Sickle Cell Patients, Families And Doctors Face A ‘Fight For Everything’
Premature death, a dearth of treatments, mistreatment in emergency rooms and a woeful lack of funding are just a few of the problems confronting people with sickle cell disease.
Medicare Penalizes Group Of 751 Hospitals For Patient Injuries
In California, 88 hospitals were penalized, including Stanford Health Care’s hospitals in Stanford and Pleasanton, the University of California-San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center. Each hospital will have its payments reduced by 1 percent for the year.
FDA Chief Says He’s Open To Rethinking Incentives On Orphan Drugs
The FDA’s Scott Gottlieb says the agency is focused on the big picture, and he wants to know why pharma churns out drugs for some rare diseases but not for others.