Patients are months away from not having to worry about most surprise medical bills — those extra costs that can amount to hundreds or thousands of dollars when people are unknowingly treated by an out-of-network doctor or hospital. What’s not clear is whether the changes in law made by the No Surprises Act — which…
At the height of the covid-19 pandemic, people often relied on telemedicine for doctor visits. Now, insurers are betting that some patients liked it enough to embrace new types of health coverage that encourages video visits — or outright insists on them. Priority Health in Michigan, for example, offers coverage requiring online visits first for…
Anthem Blue Cross, the country’s second-biggest health insurance company, is behind on billions of dollars in payments owed to hospitals and doctors because of onerous new reimbursement rules, computer problems and mishandled claims, say hospital officials in multiple states. Anthem, like other big insurers, is using the covid-19 crisis as cover to institute “egregious” policies…
The Justice Department has accused an upstate New York health insurance plan for seniors and its medical analytics company of cheating the government out of tens of millions of dollars. The civil complaint of fraud, filed late Monday, is the first by the federal government to target a data mining company for allegedly helping a…
COMMERCE CITY, Colo. — In her 19 years of living with cerebral palsy, scoliosis and other ailments, Cynthia Enriquez De Santiago has endured about 60 surgeries and her heart has flatlined at least four times. But the most unusual doctor’s referral of her life came last year: Go see an attorney. Enriquez De Santiago sought…
In the rural northeastern corner of Missouri, Scotland County Hospital has been so low on staff that it sometimes had to turn away patients amid a surge in covid-19 cases. The national covid staffing crunch means CEO Dr. Randy Tobler has hired more travel nurses to fill the gaps. And the prices are steep — what he…
If you live in one state, does it matter that the doctor treating you online is in another? Surprisingly, the answer is yes, and the ability to conduct certain virtual appointments may be nearing an end. Televisits for medical care took off during the worst days of the pandemic, quickly becoming commonplace. Most states and…
When the coronavirus hit Martha Leland’s Connecticut nursing home last year, she and dozens of other residents contracted the disease while the facility was on lockdown. Twenty-eight residents died, including her roommate. “The impact of not having friends and family come in and see us for a year was totally devastating,” she said. “And then,…
Aggressive sales tactics have allegedly led surgeons to use defective or wrong-size implants, screws or other products on patients, including former Olympian Mary Lou Retton.
To several U.S. senators, it looked wasteful, even outrageous. Every year, taxpayers pay for at least $750 million worth of expensive pharmaceuticals that are simply thrown away. Companies ship many of the drugs in “Costco”-size vials, one lawmaker said, that once opened usually cannot be resealed or saved for other patients. Yet pharma gets paid…