Filling the need for trusted information on national health issues
In this column for the JAMA Health Forum, Larry Levitt examines how the No Surprises Act that prohibits unexpected out-of-network charges for patients could lead to lower payment rates and revenues for some doctors and other care providers.
In this new video, KFF Senior Fellow Karen Pollitz explains why surprise bills have been such a major problem for patients, the new federal ban on the practice, and how patients can get help if they received a surprise bill.
This updated analysis for the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker estimates that the preventable costs of treating unvaccinated patients in hospitals total $13.8 billion during the six-month period from June through November when the delta variant led to a surge in admissions.
This brief describes the characteristics of fully vaccinated hospitalized patients who have COVID-19 breakthrough infections, in comparison to people who are not fully vaccinated and hospitalized with COVID-19.
“Breakthrough” hospitalizations involving COVID-19 among people who are fully vaccinated against the disease most often affected older adults and people with other chronic health conditions, finds a new analysis of hospital data from June through September by KFF and Epic Research. More than two-thirds (69%) of breakthrough COVID-19 hospitalizations occurred…
Unlike past recessions, the health sector saw a big drop in employment in early 2020 similar to other sectors as the COVID-19 pandemic shut down much of the nation’s economy and remains below expected employment levels through November 2021, a new KFF chart collection shows. The chart collection takes a…
The “No Surprises Act,” which establishes new federal protections against most surprise out-of-network medical bills when a patient receives out-of-network services during an emergency visit or from a provider at an in-network hospital without advance notice, will take effect next month. A new KFF brief outlines what to expect in 2022.
KFF’s Kaiser Health News (KHN) and Guardian US have won the National Press Club’s top award for online journalism for their “Lost on the Frontline” investigation. The year-long project documented the lives of more than 3,600 health care workers in the U.S. who died after contracting covid-19 on the job.…
In this commentary for Barron’s, Cynthia Cox explores the impact to the American public as the U.S. health insurance system adjusts to the COVID-19 pandemic. She uses the experience of the past year and a half to raise questions about broader issues of fairness in the distribution of health care costs in the country.
A surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations among people who have not been vaccinated in August is adding billions of dollars in preventable costs to the nation’s health-care system, an updated KFF analysis finds. In August, the new analysis estimates that the preventable costs of treating unvaccinated patients in hospitals total $3.7…
