The delays can be excruciating, with some extreme cases running more than 20 days. People getting tested at urgent care centers, community health centers, pharmacies and state-run drive-thru or walk-up sites are often waiting a week or more to find out if they tested positive for the coronavirus.
Read MoreUnlike earlier in the year, most hospitals are not proactively canceling elective surgeries, even in some places seeing spikes in coronavirus patients.
Read MoreCheck out KHN’s video series — Behind The Byline: How The Story Got Made. Come along as journalists and producers offer an insider’s view of health care coverage that does not quit.
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The speech by the presumptive Democrat presidential nominee was delivered the same day the Trump administration reaffirmed its support of a lawsuit that would invalidate all of the Affordable Care Act, including the law’s preexisting condition protections.
Read MoreA federal study finds 35% of people 60 and older were vaccinated for shingles by 2018, up from 7% in 2008, but low-income people and those who are Black or Hispanic are far less likely to get vaccinated.
Read MoreIn a 7-2 ruling in a case involving the Little Sisters of the Poor, the court said employers with a “religious or moral objection” to contraceptives should not be forced to insure women for those services.
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In Houston, now a hot spot for COVID cases, not everyone agrees on how to deal with the pandemic.
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The United States is the only developed nation unable to balance cost, efficacy and social good in setting prices.
Read MorePeople who put off care as COVID-19 surged are easing back into the medical system. Here’s how to know if it’s safe.
Read MoreHealth care workers on the front lines of the COVID crisis have spent exhausting months working and self-quarantining off-duty to keep from infecting others, including their families. Encountering people who indignantly refuse face coverings can feel like a slap in the face.
Read MoreAmericans who had coronavirus symptoms in March and April are getting big hospital bills — because they were not sick enough to get then-scarce COVID tests. Some insurers say they are trying to correct these bills, but patients may have to put up a fight.
Read MoreSome are grieving the loss of precious time in late life. Others are adjusting their ideas of what is possible and making the best of it.
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Executions have been on hold in California since 2006, stalled by a series of legal challenges. But COVID-19 is proving a lethal presence on San Quentin’s death row.
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The coronavirus has forced drug rehabilitation centers to scale back operations or temporarily close, leaving people who have another potentially deadly disease — addiction — with fewer opportunities for help.
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For three years, staffers at UCLA Health have been quietly fulfilling final wishes for dying patients in the intensive care unit. Amid the isolating forces of the pandemic, their work has become all the more meaningful.
Read MoreA rule finalized this spring by the Trump administration permits employers and insurers not to apply drug company copayment assistance toward enrollees’ deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums for any drug.
Read MoreSkip the numbers. Focus on the mask.
Read MoreFor new medical residents, this has been a year like no other. In part that’s because getting from here to there — from medical school to residency training sites — has been complicated by the coronavirus.
Read MoreThe U.S. public health system has been starved for decades and lacks the resources necessary to confront the worst health crisis in a century. An investigation by The Associated Press and KHN has found that since 2010, spending for state public health departments has dropped by 16% per capita and for local health departments by 18%. At least 38,000 public health jobs have disappeared, leaving a skeletal workforce for what was once viewed as one of the world’s top public health systems. That has left the nation unprepared to deal with a virus that has sickened at least 2.6 million people and killed more than 126,000.
Read MoreTo assess the state of the public health system in the United States, KHN and The Associated Press analyzed data on government spending and staffing at national, state and local levels. Here’s what data we used and how we did it.
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