“Out-of-network” means “bad idea.” Right? Yet many patients do willingly choose out-of-network doctors for medical care, whether it's for a complex surgery or for managing their diabetes. Going out-of-network isn't for everyone, but it can have benefits for those who make a fully informed choice.
As the law stands now, doctors on probation have to tell hospitals and insurance companies about the fact that they are on probation. But they don’t have to tell their patients. Consumer groups argue that should change and momentum is building in support of the idea.
Can you buy health care like computers? For years, health policy gurus, employers and entrepreneurs have argued you could. But growing evidence tells us that the focus on turning patients into shoppers has real limits.
On Monday, Montana became the 30th state to expand Medicaid. On Tuesday, election results cast Kentucky's Medicaid expansion into doubt. What does this all have to do with kids' health? When it comes to children's health insurance, a state's Medicaid status can make a big difference.
The patient identified only as E.T. in documents had entered the hospital alive, with a slow heart rate. She died a few hours later, after Dr. Madhusudhan T. Gupta had tried to insert a pacemaker into her artery instead of her vein. Years would go by before the Medical Board took meaningful action.
Government decisions affect health, but we often don't realize it. Even stories that do examine how our environments shape health and wellbeing don’t always zero in on the specific policies contributing to those conditions. ChangeLab Solutions' Rebecca Johnson explains.
A hospital in Marin County, California, has successfully lowered its Cesarean-section rates by employing nurse midwives. As KRCB’s Danielle Venton reports, duplicating those results around the state is going to require some creative thinking.
Health insurance premium hikes have been modest in recent years, but out-of-pockets costs are another story. Our Thursday webinar on "Out of Pocket: Surprise Costs After Health Reform" offered a primer on the trends and a host of story ideas for reporting on these topics.
During several inspections over the past five years, federal regulators cited the five local hospitals tracked by the Orange County Register nearly 100 times for infection control violations. The most common problems were incorrectly sterilized surgical tools and dirty operating rooms and equipment.
A year after Thomas Eric Duncan died from Ebola after seeking care at a Texas hospital, what’s different about health preparedness in the U.S.? Reporter Anna Almendrala set out to answer that question, and found a series of heartbreaking stories of loss along the way.
