Latest California Healthline Stories
How A Shutdown Might Affect Your Health
For some federal health programs, a shuttered government means business as usual. But the congressional impasse over funding will hit others hard.
Home Care Agencies Often Wrongly Deny Medicare Help To The Chronically Ill
Agencies sometimes turn away Medicare beneficiaries with chronic health problems by incorrectly claiming Medicare won’t pay their services, say patient advocates.
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.
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.
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.
Infection Lapses Rampant In Nursing Homes But Punishment Is Rare
A Kaiser Health News analysis of federal inspection records shows that nursing home inspectors labeled mistakes in infection control as serious for only 161 of the 12,056 homes they have cited since 2014.
Experts Tell Congress How To Cut Drug Prices. We Give You Some Odds.
Some of the nation’s most influential scientists recommend eight steps to lower drug prices. KHN takes the political temperature and tells you the chances of Congress acting on them.
Podcast: ‘What The Health?’ Is Health Care Spending Still The Hungry, Hungry Hippo?
In this episode of “What the Health?” Julie Rovner of Kaiser Health News, Stephanie Armour of the Wall Street Journal, Alice Ollstein of Talking Points Memo and Margot Sanger Katz of The New York Times discuss new health spending numbers from the federal government, as well as how the year-end legislating in Congress is being complicated by health issues.
Pace Of U.S. Health Spending Slows In 2016
Dramatic increases in spending that came with the influx of newly insured consumers in 2014 and 2015 appear to be moderating.
Congress Isn’t Really Done With Health Care — Just Look At What’s In The Tax Bills
Even though congressional Republicans set aside their Obamacare repeal-and-replace efforts this year, here are five major health policy changes that could become law as part of the pending House and Senate proposals.