Coronavirus (COVID-19)

This policy watch provides an early look at how top private insurers are implementing a new requirement to cover the cost of at-home COVID-19 tests. Initially about half offer a direct coverage option and half require an enrollee to pay upfront and then seek reimbursement.

As COVID cases have surged across the United States due to the new Omicron variant, the Biden Administration has stepped up efforts to expand testing capacity including by making at-home COVID tests more available.

Less than a week after a new federal mandate to cover such products took effect, about half of the nation’s largest private insurers allow enrollees to directly obtain rapid at-home COVID-19 tests from specific sources without having to pay anything upfront, a new KFF analysis finds. The new coverage requirement…

In this JAMA Forum column, KFF’s Larry Levitt examines the growing role of private insurance companies in public programs, including Medicare Advantage and Medicaid managed care, and the tradeoffs that result.

Use of digital behavioral health services increased during the COVID-19 pandemic when in-person visits were limited. This brief examines how different types of mental health apps are used, how federal policies during the pandemic affected the scope of services they could provide, and key issues to watch.

This policy watch provides a short overview of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), describing its history, budget, organizational structure and its major programs and responsibilities.

As the COVID-19 outbreak continues to grow in the United States, it threatens efforts to address existing health challenges, including the HIV/AIDS epidemic. This blog piece explores whether efforts to “end the HIV epidemic” can be sustained while confronting COVID-19, particularly as the very systems and workforce needed to address HIV are being stretched thin to confront the new crisis.

This brief offers an overview of the new multilateral global health financing mechanism known as the Pandemic Fund, which is housed at the World Bank. The brief reviews the evolution of the Fund, its current financial status and donors, U.S. engagement, and policy issues going forward.

This analysis compares 2021 data about deaths in the U.S. and 11 other large, wealthy countries by age and cause to understand the primary drivers of the longevity gap between the U.S. and the comparable countries. It finds that the primary reasons for the gap in 2021 were chronic disease, COVID-19 and substance use disorders.