Health Providers Scramble to Keep Remaining Staff Amid Medicaid Rate Debate

Andrew Johnson lets his clients choose what music to play in the car. As an employee of Family Outreach in Helena, Montana — an organization that assists developmentally disabled people — part of his workday involves driving around, picking up clients, and taking them to work or to run errands. “What’s up, gangsta?” Johnson said […]

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Sen. Sanders Shows Fire, but Seeks Modest Goals, in His Debut Drug Hearing as Health Chair

Arthur Allen Sen. Bernie Sanders, who rose to national prominence criticizing big business in general and the pharmaceutical industry in particular, claimed the spotlight Wednesday on what might at first seem a powerful new stage from which to advance his agenda: chairmanship of the Senate health committee. But the hearing Sanders used to excoriate a […]

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World Tuberculosis Day: WHO ramps up initiative to combat killer disease

On the eve of World Tuberculosis Day, WHO announced that it will expand the scope of a five-year-old initiative in efforts to eradicate one of the world’s top infectious killers by 2030. TB mainly affects the lungs, but it is preventable, treatable and curable. Although deaths have dropped by nearly 40 per cent globally since […]

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WHO chief warns against misinformation over global pandemic accord

Briefing correspondents in Geneva at his regular weekly press conference, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that “the claim that the accord will cede power to WHO is quite simply false. It’s fake news.” Countries will decide He made clear that countries themselves will decide the wording and scope of any global agreement on how to tackle the next […]

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Southern Africa: Cyclone Freddy aftermath brings diseases, healthcare gaps

The devastation caused by the cyclone in Madagascar, Malawi and Mozambique has increased the spread of cholera and malaria, as well as malnutrition. Meanwhile, more than 300 health facilities have been destroyed or flooded in the three countries, limiting health care access. The cyclone’s destruction increased public health risks including a surge in the spread […]

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The Policy, and Politics, of Medicare Advantage

The Host Medicare Advantage, the private-sector alternative to original Medicare, now enrolls nearly half of all Medicare beneficiaries. But it remains controversial because — while most of its subscribers like the extra benefits many plans provide — the program frequently costs the federal government more than if those seniors remained in the fully public program. […]

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Being ‘Socially Frail’ Comes With Health Risks for Older Adults

Judith Graham Consider three hypothetical women in their mid-70s, all living alone in identical economic circumstances with the same array of ailments: diabetes, arthritis, and high blood pressure. Ms. Green stays home most of the time and sometimes goes a week without seeing people. But she’s in frequent touch by phone with friends and relatives, […]

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Fresh Produce Is an Increasingly Popular Prescription for Chronically Ill Patients

Carly Graf When Mackenzie Sachs, a registered dietitian on the Blackfeet Reservation, in northwestern Montana, sees a patient experiencing high blood pressure, diabetes, or another chronic illness, her first thought isn’t necessarily to recommend medication. Rather, if the patient doesn’t have easy access to fruit and vegetables, she’ll enroll the person in the FAST Blackfeet […]

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Legal Questions, Inquiries Intensify Around Noble Health’s Rural Missouri Hospital Closures

A year after private equity-backed Noble Health shuttered two rural Missouri hospitals, patients and former employees grapple with a broken local health system or missing out on millions in unpaid wages and benefits. The hospitals in Audrain and Callaway counties remain closed as a slew of lawsuits and state and federal investigations grind forward. In […]

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