Author: Scott Welch
When Doug Garfinkel, a San Francisco teacher, walked into Walgreens last week to get his first coronavirus shot, he was surprised no one asked for identification or proof that he was the educator he said he was when he made his appointment online. Garfinkel, whose profession became eligible for vaccination last week, said he understands ...
The consequences are deepening for concierge health care provider One Medical following an NPR investigation that found the company administered COVID-19 vaccinations to those with connections to leadership, as well as ineligible patients. The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis is launching its own investigation into the San Francisco-based company’s practices, NPR has learned. The probe ...
Employers can cut their health-care expenses by paying top medical providers a flat rate for a bundle of related services while offering incentives to the patients who use them, a study suggests. The study, published Monday in the journal Health Affairs, found that employers using a flat-rate approach run by Carrum Health saved about 11% ...
President Biden will announce Tuesday that pharmaceutical giant Merck will help make Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot coronavirus vaccine — an unusual pact between fierce competitors that could sharply boost the supply of the newly authorized vaccine, according to senior administration officials. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a matter that has not been ...
The U.S. has hit a plateau in coronavirus cases and deaths that signal a “potential shift in the trajectory of the pandemic,” the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned states on Monday not to loosen restrictions and get in front of the progress the country has made since it hit a monumental 300,000 cases a ...
President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package would trigger cuts to Medicare and other programs early next year unless Republicans agree to a waiver — a hurdle that could give the GOP leverage over Democrats’ slim majorities. The Congressional Budget Office said in a letter Thursday to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy that Medicare would face ...
CMS issued a guidance Feb. 26 that requires group health plans to waive cost-sharing for COVID-19 testing even if a person doesn’t have symptoms or a suspected exposure, among other requirements. Five things to know: 1. The guidance clarifies that private group health plans generally can’t use medical screening criteria to deny coverage for COVID-19 tests for ...
The Biden administration is asking the Supreme Court not to hear arguments in two cases on its March calendar about the Trump administration’s plan to remake Medicaid by requiring recipients to work. The Biden administration has been moving to roll back those Trump-era plans and cited “greatly changed circumstances” in asking Monday that the cases be dropped ...
On October 30, California Governor Gavin Newsom unveiled a new $120 million, 134,000 sq. foot coronavirus testing facility in Valencia, north of L.A. “This new laboratory will allow California to ensure its testing capacity is timely, equitable and cost-effective – just when Californians need it most,” Newsom said at the opening. At the time, Newsom boasted that the facility had been ...
A group of Democratic state lawmakers introduced legislation Friday to create a single-payer health care system to cover all Californians, immediately defining the biggest health policy debate of the year and putting enormous political pressure on Gov. Gavin Newsom.