patients

Medicare Advantage increasingly popular with seniors — but not hospitals and doctors

BY: - November 30, 2023

(This story was updated at 5:45 p.m. Nov. 30, 2023, to add information about Arkansas hospitals.) A hospital system in Georgia. Two medical groups in San Diego. Another in Louisville, Kentucky, and nearly one-third of Nebraska hospitals. Across the country, health care providers are refusing to accept some Medicare Advantage plans — even as the […]

COMMENTARY

From hospital to hospitality: Spin doctors brand getting sick as an adventure. It’s not.

BY: - November 27, 2023

The last time I stepped on a plane for vacation, for fun, was more than three years ago. I haven’t been able to visit California, whose coast I adore. Nor Rome, where my husband and I lived for some time. And yet, I’m told, I’ve been on a journey. Two journeys, actually: First, a “traumatic […]

Jillian Philips and her sons, Jude and Emmett, hold an urn containing some of the ashes of her daughter, Emilia Phillips, May 2, 2023, in North Brookfield, Mass. The urn is housed in a teddy bear that daughter Macy sleeps with nightly. Philips, who used the drug mifepristone to manage her miscarriage, is concerned that other women who miscarry could suffer if the pill, also used for abortions, is taken off the market. (Reba Saldanha/The Associated Press)

Many women can’t access miscarriage drug because it’s also used for abortions

BY: - October 23, 2023

Read more Stateline coverage on how states are either protecting or curbing access to abortions. Since losing her first pregnancy four months ago, 32-year-old Lulu has struggled to return to her body’s old rhythms. Lulu, who asked to be identified by her first name to protect her privacy, bled for six full weeks after her […]

Filling Medical Form, document, stethoscope

Nearly 50 congressional Democrats urge tighter regulations protecting medical records

BY: - July 18, 2023

Nearly 50 Democratic and independent members of Congress are appealing to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to tighten regulations protecting the privacy of health information. In a letter Tuesday to Secretary Xavier Beccera, they asked that the department enact more precautions to ensure that law officers obtain a warrant before seeking the […]

What abortion foes have been up to in the year after Dobbs draft leak

BY: - May 2, 2023

Anti-abortion leaders could not stop paraphrasing Winston Churchill last June after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a victory that took 50 years to realize.  “While we celebrate the momentous ruling in Dobbs, we must remember that overturning Roe was not the beginning of the end, but it was the end of the […]

A stressed patient confers with a doctor.

Abortion-rights attorneys help patients and providers navigate legal chaos 

BY: - April 20, 2023

These days Kylee Sunderlin is often the first person people will talk to about needing or wanting to terminate a pregnancy, even though she’s not a nurse or doctor or a loved one. She’s a lawyer.  This is Sunderlin’s third year overseeing a national hotline dedicated to helping people navigate legal questions around abortion in […]

Anti-abortion organizations urge U.S. Supreme Court to keep limits on abortion pill

BY: - April 18, 2023

WASHINGTON — Anti-abortion medical organizations on Tuesday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to maintain a lower court ruling that would push prescribing and administration of the abortion pill back to pre-2016 instructions, ending mail orders, while an ongoing legal case works through the appeals process.  Meanwhile, more members of Congress lined up on either side […]

Abortion Law book on copy of Preamble. Gavel and stethoscope.

Texas judge’s abortion pill ruling supported by 69 Republicans in Congress

BY: - April 12, 2023

WASHINGTON — A group of 69 congressional Republicans is backing a federal judge’s ruling that would overturn the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s two-decade-old approval of the abortion pill mifepristone.  The 11 GOP senators and 58 House lawmakers, who filed a brief in the appeals case, broke the relative silence from Republicans in Congress on […]

Close-up Of A Woman's Hand Taking Medicine Over Wooden Desk

Physicians react to ruling placing abortion pill use in jeopardy

BY: and - April 8, 2023

A Texas federal judge with a history of anti-abortion beliefs has thrown into jeopardy the most common form of abortion since Roe v. Wade fell last summer. U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk released his decision on the cusp of Easter weekend to pause the Food and Drug Administration’s 2000 approval of the abortion drug […]

Worried pregnant woman communicating with her female gynecologist during a visit in the office.

Doctors recount ‘heart-wrenching’ stories in new study on medical care post-Roe  

BY: - February 24, 2023

Researchers at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) are trying to piece together how the end of Roe v. Wade has so far transformed pregnancy-related medical care in America, and the yet-to-be-released preliminary data are alarming, the lead principal investigator told States Newsroom in an exclusive interview.  The team has already received dozens of […]

Close up of Physiotherapist working with patient in clinic.

More orthopedic physicians sell out to private equity firms, raising alarms about costs and quality

BY: - January 9, 2023

Dr. Paul Jeffords and his colleagues at Atlanta-based Resurgens Orthopaedics were worried about their ability to survive financially, even though their independent orthopedic practice was the largest in Georgia, with nearly 100 physicians. They nervously watched other physician practices sell out entirely to large hospital systems and health insurers. They refused to consider doing that. […]

A gloved hand holds a bottle of Covid-19 vaccine.

Federal judge strikes down part of Montana’s far-reaching anti-vax law

BY: - December 13, 2022

In a victory for public health advocates, a federal judge in Montana has blocked the state from implementing a law that would make it illegal for hospitals to ask employees if they are vaccinated. The measure, which passed last year, was the country’s most extreme anti-vaccination law. Health care providers in Montana had sued the […]