March 29, 2024
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The Marvels of Omega-3 Fatty Acids
Navigating the Landscape of Women’s Health
Harnessing the Benefits of Vegetable Juices for Health
A Deep Dive into Nutritional Vitamins and Minerals
Navigating the Landscape of Health Policy and Management
Exploring the World of Health Food
Nourishing Your Body: Unique Ideas for Health Food
Secrets to a Healthier: Beyond Good, Towards Optimal Well-Being
Crafting Your Path to Wellness: Innovative Ideas for a Healthy Life
Embark on a Journey Towards Excellent Skin Health
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The Marvels of Omega-3 Fatty Acids Navigating the Landscape of Women’s Health Harnessing the Benefits of Vegetable Juices for Health A Deep Dive into Nutritional Vitamins and Minerals Navigating the Landscape of Health Policy and Management Exploring the World of Health Food Nourishing Your Body: Unique Ideas for Health Food Secrets to a Healthier: Beyond Good, Towards Optimal Well-Being Crafting Your Path to Wellness: Innovative Ideas for a Healthy Life Embark on a Journey Towards Excellent Skin Health
Dec
2022
27

KHN-NPR’s ‘Bill of the Month’ at 5: A Treasury of Solutions for Confounding Medical Bills

In 2022, readers shared more than 1,000 personal stories of medical billing problems, contributing one patient at a time to an ongoing portrait of the rippling financial consequences of becoming sick or injured in the United States.

Many of the submissions received during the fifth year of KHN-NPR’s “Bill of the Month” investigative series conveyed the same message: I want to tell my story so what happened to me won’t happen to anyone else.

The stories told this year illuminated some of the major financial decisions American patients are pressed to make in their most vulnerable moments. We met Peggy Dula of Illinois, whose experience illustrated the financial risk patients accept when they get into an ambulance, even one from a local fire department. Sean Deines of North Carolina, who received a $489,000 air ambulance bill, offered a case from before the new federal law took effect last January banning

Dec
2022
26

Colorado Considers Changing Its Red Flag Law After Mass Shooting at Nightclub

A Nov. 19 shooting that killed five people and wounded 19 at a Colorado Springs nightclub has officials considering changes to strengthen Colorado’s red flag law, particularly in self-declared “Second Amendment sanctuaries,” where emergency petitions to remove a person’s guns are filed less frequently and usually denied.

The three-year-old state law allows law enforcement officials or family members to seek a court order to seize the guns of a person who poses a threat to themselves or others. But the Club Q shooting underscores a fundamental challenge for it and other red flag laws: Sheriffs often refuse to use the measures based on a belief that they infringe on the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms.

El Paso County, where the Colorado Springs shooting happened, is one such place. It has the lowest approval rate for initial court petitions filed under the law of any county in Colorado

Dec
2022
25

Survivors of Gangs and Gun Violence, These Women Now Help Others Navigate Grief

When April Roby-Bell joined the Gangster Disciples in middle school, the street gang treated her like family when she felt abandoned by her own. She was looking for love, acceptance, and stability.

“They trained us as little kids. How to own your ’hood, own your street: ‘This is my territory,’” Roby-Bell said.

The experience also taught her tough lessons about life and death at an early age. At least half of the friends she grew up with are now dead. “At times, it became hard because you just get tired of fighting,” she said. “I probably should have been dead a long time ago.”

At 42, Roby-Bell isn’t defending territory for a gang anymore. Instead, she is standing up for the families in the southern Illinois communities of East St. Louis and neighboring Washington Park who want their children to be able to go outside to play without

Dec
2022
24

Seasonal Cooks’ Secret Sauce: Heaping Nutrition and Cultural Zest


Oldways Ambassadors Brenda Atchison and Glorya Fernandez walked a KHN reporter through two cooking demonstrations to showcase modern takes on cultural classics — like a cold black-eyed pea salad just in time for the new year, and a garlicky dill mojo sauce served over spinach salad.

Last year, Kelly LeBlanc, director of nutrition at Oldways, shared the organization’s heritage-based food guide pyramids with KHN for a report on USDA food guidelines. It’s the 10-year anniversary of Oldways’ A Taste of African Heritage nutrition curriculum, and this year, the curriculum became part of the Department of Agriculture’s SNAP-Ed Toolkit, a collection of interventions from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program educational effort focused on helping low-income households make healthier food choices and reinforce healthy eating habits.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with

Dec
2022
22

Hundreds of US Hospitals Sue Patients or Threaten Their Credit, a KHN Investigation Finds

Despite growing evidence of the harm caused by medical debt, hundreds of U.S. hospitals maintain policies to aggressively pursue patients for unpaid bills, using tactics such as lawsuits, selling patient accounts to debt buyers, and reporting patients to credit rating agencies, a KHN investigation shows.

The collection practices are commonplace among all types of hospitals in all regions of the country, including public university systems, leading academic institutions, small community hospitals, for-profit chains, and nonprofit Catholic systems.

Individual hospital systems have come under scrutiny in recent years for suing patients. But the KHN analysis shows the practice is widespread, suggesting most of the nation’s approximately 5,100 hospitals serving the general public have policies to use legal action or other aggressive tactics against patients.

And although industry officials say they are careful about how they target patients for unpaid bills, few institutions have renounced what federal rules call

Dec
2022
20

After Tuition, Books, and Room and Board, Colleges’ Rising Health Fees Hit a Nerve

You’ve compared tuition. Reviewed on-campus housing costs. Even digested student meal plan prices.

But have you thought about how much your son’s or daughter’s dream school will charge for health coverage?

You might be in for a shock.

Hawley Montgomery-Downs was thrilled when daughter Bryn Tronco earned a scholarship that pays half the $63,000 annual tuition at the University of Southern California. But just as school was starting in August, she was stunned to receive a bill from USC for $3,000 to cover both a student health insurance premium and a fee that allows students to access on-campus clinics and other services. At home in West Virginia, she had paid nothing for her daughter’s health insurance, through the state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program, which serves lower- and middle-class families.

Montgomery-Downs, who lives in Morgantown, West Virginia, was especially upset that USC not only billed her

Dec
2022
19

Why Medicaid Expansion Ballots May Hit a Dead End After a Fleeting Victory in South Dakota

Republican-led legislatures have repeatedly thwarted Medicaid expansion in a dozen conservative states, despite high numbers of uninsured residents. In recent years, supporters of expansion have found success with another strategy: letting voters decide.

Since 2017, Medicaid expansion has passed in seven states where the issue was put on the ballot, adopting the Affordable Care Act provision that would grant health insurance to hundreds of thousands living at or near the poverty line.

Last month, South Dakota voters adopted the program after bypassing the state’s conservative legislature. But any momentum from that November election victory was fleeting.

In Florida and Wyoming, the two remaining states where voters have the option, high costs and other hurdles baked into the ballot process render it almost impossible to enact a measure, advocates say.

“Each of those states, for different reasons, is particularly difficult to move a Medicaid expansion ballot

Dec
2022
17

Para combatir la violencia con armas de fuego, artista convierte las balas en arte

East St. Louis, Illinois.- Cuando era niño, Mykael Ash disfrutaba recogiendo conchas marinas cerca de la costa del golfo de Mississippi, en donde vive su abuelo. Los viajes a la playa eran una parte habitual de su vida.

“Es energía pacífica”, dijo Ash. “Especialmente cuando apoyas esa concha marina sobre la oreja”.

A los 32 años, todavía colecciona conchas. Pero el terreno es diferente en esta ciudad de 18,000 habitantes. Ash camina sobre concreto en lugar de arena, y en vez de conchas recoge cartuchos dejados por las balas y cintas amarillas de seguridad mientras camina para hacer ejercicio.

“De repente, un día me di cuenta”, dijo: podría usar estos cartuchos en sus obras de arte.

La violencia con armas de fuego ha sido un problema persistente en East St. Louis, que, para frustración de muchos residentes, tenía una de las tasas de homicidios más altas de cualquier ciudad de

Dec
2022
16

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Health Spending? Only Congress Knows

Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on Acast. You can also listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Congress has a tentative framework for government spending through this fiscal year. Now, lawmakers must fill in the blanks, including on key health care provisions, and get it passed. The Biden administration will send more free covid-19 home tests to Americans after initial fears the program was running out of money.

And there’s plenty of news coming in from the states, where this week a Texas judge tossed out a lawsuit based on the state’s so-called vigilante abortion law, and the governor of Florida is asking for a grand jury investigation into harm caused by covid vaccines.

This week’s panelists are Mary Agnes Carey of KHN, Rachel Cohrs of Stat, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Rebecca Adams

Dec
2022
15

How Medicare Advantage Plans Dodged Auditors and Overcharged Taxpayers by Millions

In April 2016, government auditors asked a Blue Cross Medicare Advantage health plan in Minnesota to turn over medical records of patients treated by a podiatry practice whose owner had been indicted for fraud.

Medicare had paid the Blue Cross plan more than $20,000 to cover the care of 11 patients seen by Aggeus Healthcare, a chain of podiatry clinics, in 2011.

Blue Cross said it couldn’t locate any records to justify the payments because Aggeus shut down in the wake of the indictment, which included charges of falsifying patient medical files. So Blue Cross asked the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for a “hardship” exemption to a strict requirement that health plans retain these files in the event of an audit.

CMS granted the request and auditors removed the 11 patients from a random sample of 201 Blue Cross plan members whose records were reviewed.

A review of