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Countless Homebound Patients Still Wait for Covid Vaccine Despite Seniors’ Priority
This story also ran on CNN. It can be republished for free. Opening another front in the nation’s response to the pandemic, medical centers and other health organizations have begun sending doctors and nurses to apartment buildings and private homes to vaccinate homebound seniors. Boston Medical Center, which runs the oldest in-home medical service in the country, started doing this Feb. 1. Wake Forest Baptist Health, a North Carolina health system, followed a week later. In Miami Beach, Florida, fire department paramedics are delivering vaccines to frail seniors in their own homes. In East St...
Kaiser Health News
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Countless Homebound Patients Still Wait for Covid Vaccine Despite Seniors’ Priority
This story also ran on CNN. It can be republished for free. Opening another front in the nation’s response to the pandemic, medical centers and other health organizations have begun sending doctors and nurses to apartment buildings and private homes to vaccinate homebound seniors. Boston Medical Center, which runs the oldest in-home medical service in the country, started doing this Feb. 1. Wake Forest Baptist Health, a North Carolina health system, followed a week later. In Miami Beach, Florida, fire department paramedics are delivering vaccines to frail seniors in their own homes. In East St...
California Healthline
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Montana’s Health Policy MVP Takes Her Playbook on the Road
Use Our Content It can be republished for free. Marilyn Bartlett might be the closest thing health policy has to a folk hero. A certified public accountant who barely tops 5 feet, Bartlett bears zero resemblance to Paul Bunyan. But she did take an ax to Montana’s hospital prices in 2016, stopping the state’s employee health plan from bleeding money. “Marilyn is not a physically imposing person,” said Montana Board of Investments Executive Director Dan Villa, who worked closely with Bartlett in state government. “She is a blend of your favorite aunt, an accounting savant and a little bit of Jul...
Kaiser Health News
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Montana’s Health Policy MVP Takes Her Playbook on the Road
Use Our Content It can be republished for free. Marilyn Bartlett might be the closest thing health policy has to a folk hero. A certified public accountant who barely tops 5 feet, Bartlett bears zero resemblance to Paul Bunyan. But she did take an ax to Montana’s hospital prices in 2016, stopping the state’s employee health plan from bleeding money. “Marilyn is not a physically imposing person,” said Montana Board of Investments Executive Director Dan Villa, who worked closely with Bartlett in state government. “She is a blend of your favorite aunt, an accounting savant and a little bit of Jul...
California Healthline
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4 Vital Health Issues — Not Tied to Covid — That Congress Addressed in Massive Spending Bill
This story also ran on NPR. It can be republished for free. Late last month, before President Joe Biden took office and proposed his pandemic relief plan, Congress passed a nearly 5,600-page legislative package that provided some pandemic relief along with its more general allocations to fund the government in 2021. While the $900 billion that lawmakers included for urgent pandemic relief got most of the attention, some even bigger changes for health care were buried in the other parts of that huge legislative package. The bundle included a ban on surprise medical bills, for example — a proble...
Kaiser Health News
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4 Vital Health Issues — Not Tied to Covid — That Congress Addressed in Massive Spending Bill
This story also ran on NPR. It can be republished for free. Late last month, before President Joe Biden took office and proposed his pandemic relief plan, Congress passed a nearly 5,600-page legislative package that provided some pandemic relief along with its more general allocations to fund the government in 2021. While the $900 billion that lawmakers included for urgent pandemic relief got most of the attention, some even bigger changes for health care were buried in the other parts of that huge legislative package. The bundle included a ban on surprise medical bills, for example — a proble...
California Healthline
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Trump’s Pardons Included Health Care Execs Behind Massive Frauds
Use Our Content It can be republished for free. At the last minute, President Donald Trump granted pardons to several individuals convicted in huge Medicare swindles that prosecutors alleged often harmed or endangered elderly and infirm patients while fleecing taxpayers. “These aren’t just technical financial crimes. These were major, major crimes,” said Louis Saccoccio, chief executive officer of the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association, an advocacy group. The list of some 200 Trump pardons or commutations, most issued as he vacated the White House this week, included at least seven do...
Kaiser Health News
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Trump’s Pardons Included Health Care Execs Behind Massive Frauds
USE OUR CONTENT It can be republished for free. At the last minute, President Donald Trump granted pardons to several individuals convicted in huge Medicare swindles — including a major Long Beach kickback scheme — that prosecutors alleged often harmed or endangered elderly and infirm patients while fleecing taxpayers. “These aren’t just technical financial crimes. These were major, major crimes,” said Louis Saccoccio, chief executive officer of the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association, an advocacy group. The list of some 200 Trump pardons or commutations, most issued as he vacated the ...
California Healthline
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After a Decade of Lobbying, ALS Patients Gain Faster Access to Disability Payments
Anita Baron first noticed something was wrong in August 2018, when she began to drool. Her dentist chalked it up to a problem with her jaw. Then her speech became slurred. She managed to keep her company, which offers financing to small businesses, going, but work became increasingly difficult as her speech worsened. Finally, nine months, four neurologists and countless tests later, Baron, now 66, got a diagnosis: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. ALS, often called Lou Gehrig’s disease after the New York Yankees first baseman who died of it in 1941, destroys motor neurons, causing people to lose ...
Kaiser Health News
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After a Decade of Lobbying, ALS Patients Gain Faster Access to Disability Payments
Anita Baron first noticed something was wrong in August 2018, when she began to drool. Her dentist chalked it up to a problem with her jaw. Then her speech became slurred. She managed to keep her company, which offers financing to small businesses, going, but work became increasingly difficult as her speech worsened. Finally, nine months, four neurologists and countless tests later, Baron, now 66, got a diagnosis: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. ALS, often called Lou Gehrig’s disease after the New York Yankees first baseman who died of it in 1941, destroys motor neurons, causing people to lose ...
California Healthline
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