As my kindergartner fumbled with his shoes, I stood at our door sifting through the mental parenting checklist newly lodged in my brain: backpack. Sweatshirt. Snacks. Sunscreen. Water bottle. KN95 mask. Vaccination card. Jesse ... [Continue Reading]
Left Behind: Medicaid Patients Say Rides to Doctors Don’t Always Come
Tranisha Rockmore and her daughter Karisma waited at an Atlanta children’s hospital in July for their ride home. Karisma had been at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta to have her gastrostomy tube fixed, Rockmore said. ... [Continue Reading]
Aplicación ayuda a desestigmatizar la bancarrota para afrontar cuentas médicas
Un embarazo no planificado, y complicado, puso a Carlazjion Constant, de Smyrna, Tennessee, al borde del abismo financiero. Durante el embarazo de alto riesgo, su seguro de salud con deducible alto no pagó ... [Continue Reading]
App Attempts to Break Barriers to Bankruptcy for Those in Medical Debt
An unplanned and complicated pregnancy pushed Carlazjion Constant of Smyrna, Tennessee, to the financial brink. Her high-deductible health insurance paid virtually nothing toward the extra obstetrician visits needed during her ... [Continue Reading]
Black-Owned Hospice Seeks to Bring Greater Ease in Dying to Black Families
This time, it didn’t take much persuading for Mary Murphy to embrace home hospice. When her mother was dying from Alzheimer’s disease in 2020, she had been reluctant until she saw what a help it was. So when her husband, Willie, neared ... [Continue Reading]
A Catch-22 Trips Up Some in Legal Guardianship Who Try to Regain Independence
Ten years ago, Nicholas Clouse was riding shotgun in his friend’s Camaro when the car jerked and he felt himself flying through the air. Clouse’s head slammed against the passenger-side window. The traumatic brain ... [Continue Reading]
Hospitals Recruit International Nurses to Fill Pandemic Shortages
BILLINGS, Mont. — Before Mary Venus was offered a nursing job at a hospital here, she’d never heard of Billings or visited the United States. A native of the Philippines, she researched her prospective move via the internet, set aside her angst ... [Continue Reading]
South Dakota Voters to Decide Medicaid Expansion
South Dakota voters will decide in November whether the state should become the 39th to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, a move that would provide coverage to 42,000 low-income residents. State officials on Monday ... [Continue Reading]
Medical Marijuana Users Brace for Shortages as Montana’s Recreational Market Opens
More than a year after voters approved legalizing marijuana for recreational use in Montana, anyone older than 21 can now enter a dispensary and buy cannabis. That has medical marijuana user Joylynn Mane Wright worried. Wright ... [Continue Reading]
As Covid Hits Nursing Homes’ Finances, Town Residents Fight to Save Alzheimer’s Facility
Marvin Querry, 86, was on his tractor, planting rye on his 770-acre western Missouri farm, when the call came in early November. It was the social worker from Barone Alzheimer’s Care Center, where Querry’s wife, ... [Continue Reading]
An Anesthesiology Practice’s Busy Day in Court Collecting on Surprise Bills
Owen Loney’s surprise bill resulted from an emergency appendectomy in 2019 at a Richmond, Virginia, hospital. Insurance covered most of the cost of the hospital stay, he said. He didn’t pay much attention to a bill he ... [Continue Reading]