Author: Scott Welch
California will cover doula services for low-income residents at more than twice the state’s initial proposed rate under a spending plan lawmakers passed last week. Some advocates welcomed the new benefit in Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid health insurance program, as a step toward professionalizing this group of nonmedical birth workers. They say better pay may ...
Meta Platforms Inc. was sued over claims that private medical data is being shared secretly with Facebook when patients access web portals for some health-care providers. Facebook’s Pixel tracking tool redirects patient communications and other supposedly “secure” information without authorization and in violation of federal and state laws, according to the lawsuit filed Friday in San ...
An increasing number of Californians are feeling positive about health care, even as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, according to a new poll commissioned by Blue Shield of California. The poll of 1,000 Californians was conducted in February of this year.
Californians have traveled a bumpy road to post-pandemic recovery, with healthy employment and wage growth on the one hand, but soaring inflation and cost-of-living increases on the other.
When Cynthia Johnson learned she would owe $200 out-of-pocket for a diagnostic mammogram in Houston, she almost put off getting the test that told her she had breast cancer.
Jessica Altman took over in March as chief executive officer of Covered California, and even as she was settling into a new home in Sacramento she also was making the rounds with congressional leaders to drive home just how much Californians want access to health insurance. The greatest barrier to getting it is all too ...
The American Hospital Association has urged the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to extend enforcement discretion for the No Surprises Act regulatory requirement that healthcare providers exchange certain information to create a good faith estimate for uninsured and self-pay patients – until the agency identifies, and providers can implement, a standard, automated way to exchange the ...
Eighteen months after its final rule on price transparency went into effect, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued its first penalties to a pair of Georgia hospitals that did not update their websites or reply to the agency’s warning letters. Northside Hospital Atlanta and Northside Hospital Cherokee have been issued civil monetary penalties ...
A recent survey of Medicare Advantage enrollees found 13% had a claim or pre-authorization request denied as the program has gotten scrutiny over its prior authorization practices. The survey, released Monday by the online insurance marketplace eHealth, also found that 67% of respondents chose MA over Medigap due to concerns over its affordability. The MA ...
COVID-19 hospitalizations continue to inch up in Clark County and in Nevada, even as one metric shows confirmed cases dipping, though officials caution that the growing use of at-home tests is leading to undercounts.