Latest California Healthline Stories
Hurricane Ian’s Deadly Impact on Florida Seniors Exposes Need for New Preparation Strategies
Lengthy checklists from public health officials on handling emergencies miss vulnerable seniors who can’t always follow the recommendations.
Cash for Colonoscopies: States Try to Lower Health Costs Through Incentives
Colorado state employees could receive checks ranging from $50 to thousands of dollars if they choose the right provider. One alliance of California school districts has been using a similar system for years.
Hospital Probed for Allegedly Denying an Emergency Abortion After Patient’s Water Broke
Federal officials have ordered the probe after reports that a woman whose water broke at 18 weeks could not get medical care recommended by her doctors to end the pregnancy because hospital officials were concerned about Missouri’s strict abortion law.
Medicare Fines for High Hospital Readmissions Drop, but Nearly 2,300 Facilities Are Still Penalized
Federal officials said they are penalizing 2,273 hospitals, the fewest since the fiscal year that ended in September 2014. Driving the decline was a change in the formula to compensate for the chaos caused by the covid-19 pandemic.
Listen: Valley Fever, Health Worker Pay, and Ambulance Rides
California Healthline journalists report on the intersection between drought and valley fever, a union’s campaign to boost the minimum wage for some health care workers, and an ambulance company’s decision to stop providing some nonemergency services.
Knoxville’s Black Community Endured Deeply Rooted Racism. Now There Is Medical Debt.
Despite the end of Jim Crow segregation, its legacy lives on in medical debt that disproportionately burdens Black communities.
KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Voters Will Get Their Say on Multiple Health Issues
Abortion isn’t the only health issue voters will be asked to decide in state ballot questions next month. Proposals about medical debt, Medicaid expansion, and whether health care should be a right are on ballots in various states. Meanwhile, the latest lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act has expanded to cover all preventive care. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Jessie Hellmann of CQ Roll Call, and Victoria Knight of Axios join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these topics and more.
Ambulance Company to Halt Some Rides in Southern Calif., Citing Low Medicaid Rates
American Medical Response, the largest U.S. ambulance company, is ending nonemergency transportation for 12 hospitals in Los Angeles and Orange counties, saying the state doesn’t pay enough to transport low-income patients. The state is pushing back.
A Billing Expert Saved Big After Finding an Incorrect Charge in Her Husband’s ER Bill
A medical billing specialist investigated her husband’s ER bill. Her sleuthing took over a year but knocked thousands of dollars off the hospital’s charges — and provides a playbook for other consumers.
An Abortion Rights Question on the California Ballot Revives the Debate Over ‘Viability’
California voters will decide in November whether to amend the state constitution to explicitly protect abortion rights. But there is disagreement over whether the proposal, Proposition 1, would merely enshrine existing rights or expand them.