Health Care For Human

In March, a Frontier Airlines flight was headed from Phoenix to Las Vegas when a female passenger stopped breathing. The flight attendant yelled in the cabin for help.

A passenger who was trained as a wilderness first responder, Seth Coley, jumped into action and found the woman was unresponsive and had a weak pulse. Coley dug through the plane’s medical kit but couldn’t find an oropharyngeal airway, a tool that was supposed to be there and that he needed to help the woman breathe. Instead, he cleared the airway by manipulating her neck.

Afterward, Coley sent a message to Denver-based Frontier Airlines via an online customer service form: “I saved somebody’s life on one of your flights,” he wrote. “I would like to speak about the medical kit you guys have on your flights. You are missing some very valuable and simple things. She almost died.”

Americans are flying at

Lauren Sausser

OKLAHOMA CITY — By the summer of 2021, Phil Maytubby, deputy CEO of the health department here, was concerned to see the numbers of people getting vaccinated against covid-19 slipping after an initially robust response. With doubt, fear, and misinformation running rampant nationwide — both online and offline — he knew the agency needed to rethink its messaging strategy.

So, the health department conducted something called an online “sentiment search,” which gauges how certain words are perceived on social media. The tool found that many people in Oklahoma City didn’t like the word “vaccinate” — a term featured prominently in the health department’s marketing campaign.

“If you don’t know how your message is resonating with the public,” Maytubby said, “you’re shooting in the dark.”

Across the country, health officials have been trying to combat misinformation and restore trust within their communities these past few years, a period when

Bernard J. Wolfson

A group of emergency physicians and consumer advocates in multiple states are pushing for stiffer enforcement of decades-old statutes that prohibit the ownership of medical practices by corporations not owned by licensed doctors.

Thirty-three states plus the District of Columbia have rules on their books against the so-called corporate practice of medicine. But over the years, critics say, companies have successfully sidestepped bans on owning medical practices by buying or establishing local staffing groups that are nominally owned by doctors and restricting the physicians’ authority so they have no direct control.

These laws and regulations, which started appearing nearly a century ago, were meant to fight the commercialization of medicine, maintain the independence and authority of physicians, and prioritize the doctor-patient relationship over the interests of investors and shareholders.

Those campaigning for stiffer enforcement of the laws say that physician-staffing firms owned by private equity investors are

Dan Weissmann

Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen.

Click here for a transcript of the episode.

Health coverage generally does not cover dental work. But Susan Rice of Atlanta should have been the exception: She was hit by a speeding car, causing extensive damage to her own “grill.” She’s been fighting to get her oral surgery covered for 18 months and counting.

The “An Arm and a Leg” podcast connected Rice with University of South Carolina law professor Jacqueline Fox, who, when she was practicing law, fought insurers on behalf of patients. Fox said Rice has “done everything right.” Her insurer’s refusal to pay may be tied to a bigger problem in the Affordable Care Act marketplace … one that’s led to a class-action lawsuit. 

Here’s a transcript of this episode.

“An Arm and a Leg” is a co-production of KHN and Public Road Productions.

To keep

Dan Weissmann

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In this year’s final episode, the editorial team behind the “An Arm and a Leg” podcast looks back on the stories from 2022 that hit close to home, including insulin pricing, surprise billing, and prenatal testing. Then, host Dan Weissmann shares updates on two court cases.

“An Arm and a Leg” is a co-production of KHN and Public Road Productions.

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