Kaiser Health News
If you're one of the nearly 44 million Americans estimated to have a mental health condition, the 2010 health law is supposed to help you get treatment. Yet actually getting that help depends, new research suggests, on who you are and, to an extent, on your racial background. While more people overall are getting mental health care, it's still harder to do if you are not white.
California insurance officials are looking into whether Health Net Inc. has improperly withheld payments to addiction treatment centers for months while the company investigates concerns about fraudulent claims.
With research increasingly highlighting the link between sleep and good health, children's hospitals are rethinking just how they work at night.
UnitedHealth Group Inc. is leaving California's insurance exchange at the end of this year, state officials confirmed Tuesday.
Issues can arise when patient information isn't shared with family and friends, either because medical staff decide to withhold it or patients themselves choose to restrict who can receive information about their care.
In the report issued Thursday, Blue Shield for the first time listed total compensation for its 10-highest paid executives by name. The company also offered details, such as base salary and incentive awards.
News that a CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield subsidiary will stop selling bronze level plans on the Virginia marketplace next year prompted some speculation that it could signal a developing movement by insurers to drop that level of coverage altogether. The reality may be more complicated and interesting, some experts said, based on an analysis of plan data.
Steven Lipstein, chief executive of BJC, which includes Barnes-Jewish hospital in St. Louis, said Medicare doesn't play fair because its formula for setting penalties does not factor in patients with socioeconomic disadvantages -- low-income, poor health habits and chronic illnesses for instance -- that contribute to repeated hospitalizations.
This prototype machine produces 1,000 pills in 24 hours, faster than it can take to produce some batches in a factory. Allan Myerson, a professor of chemical engineering at MIT and a leader of the effort, says it could become eventually an option for anyone who makes medications, which typically require a lengthy and complex process of crystallization.
The experiment begins Wednesday at the VA's operations in Palo Alto, California. Veterans can visit 14 "MinuteClinics" operated by CVS in the San Francisco Bay area and Sacramento, where staff will treat them for conditions such as respiratory infections, order lab tests and prescribe medications, which can be filled at CVS pharmacies. Whether the partnership will spread to other VA locales isn't yet clear.