Congress Passes CARES Act Giving $100B in Hospital Funds for COVID-19
By Jacqueline LaPoint March 26, 2020 The House of Representatives has passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, sending the bill to President Trump’s desk awaiting signature. The bill will give $100 billion to hospitals and community health centers to promote economic stability as they ramp up efforts to address the COVID-29 […]
TIME: Total Cost of Her COVID-19 Treatment: $34,927.43
By Abigail Abrams March 19, 2020 When Danni Askini started feeling chest pain, shortness of breath and a migraine all at once on a Saturday in late February, she called the oncologist who had been treating her lymphoma. Her doctor thought she might be reacting poorly to a new medication, so she sent Askini to […]
Axios Vitals: Ambulance surprise bills common and large
By Caitlin Owens April 16, 2020 Ambulance surprise bills common and large Ground and air ambulances are frequent sources of surprise out-of-network bills, and those charges “were substantially greater than in-network prices,” according to new research published in Health Affairs. The bottom line: Three out of every four ambulance sirens you hear right now, in […]
PROPUBLICA: Overwhelmed Hospitals Face a New Crisis: Staffing Firms Are Cutting Their Doctors’ Hours and Pay
By: Isaac Arnsdorf April 30, 2019 The country’s top employers of emergency room doctors are cutting their hours — leaving clinicians with lower earnings and hospitals with less staff in the middle of a pandemic. TeamHealth, a major medical staffing company owned by the private-equity giant Blackstone, is reducing hours for ER staff in some […]
KHN: Summer Bummer: A Young Camper’s $142,938 Snakebite
By: Carmen Heredia Rodriguez April 30, 2019 The snake struck a 9-year-old hiker at dusk on a nature trail. The outrageous bills struck her parents a few weeks later. It was dusk as Oakley Yoder and the other summer camp kids hiked back to their tents at Illinois’ Jackson Falls last July. As the group […]
NYT Opinion: He Got Tested for Coronavirus. Then Came the Flood of Medical Bills.
By: Elisabeth Rosenthal and Emmarie Huetteman March 30, 2020 By March 5, Andrew Cencini, a computer science professor at Bennington College, had been having bouts of fever, malaise and a bit of difficulty breathing for a couple of weeks. Just before falling ill, he had traveled to New York City, helped with computers in a local prison […]
NPR: A Genetic Test For A Microscopic Problem Came With A Jumbo Price Tag
By: Liz Szabo — March 31, 2020 Michelle Kuppersmith feels great, works full time and exercises three to four times a week. So she was surprised when a routine blood test found that her body was making too many platelets, which help control bleeding. Kuppersmith’s doctor suspected the 32-year-old Manhattanite had a rare blood disorder […]
VOX: The case of the $629 Band-Aid — and what it reveals about American health care
By Sarah Kliff, May 13, 2016 Last January, Malcolm Bird took his 1-year-old daughter, Colette, to the local emergency room. His wife had accidentally cut the young girl’s pinky finger while clipping her fingernails, and it had begun to bleed. They were nervous, first-time parents who wanted a doctor’s opinion. Colette turned out to be […]
WSJ: Jeanette White Is Long Dead But Her Hospital Bill Lives On
By Lucette Lagnado, March 13, 2003 Quinton White lies in bed at his home in Bridgeport, Conn., suffering from kidney ailments and the aftereffects of a heart attack and dreaming of a trip to Paris, which he has seen only in the movies. But for Mr. White, a retired dry-cleaning worker, seeing Europe is probably […]
NIHCM: Hospital Mergers and the Unrealized Promise of Better Quality
Why This Study Is Important Across the country, mergers and acquisitions in the hospital industry are reducing competition between local rival hospitals and conferring additional clout to regional and national hospital systems as these systems grow in size and dominance. Strong empirical evidence shows this increased market power enables hospitals to negotiate higher prices. While […]