This year, executives from nearly every major health insurance company made the same declaration in calls with Wall Street analysts: Using artificial intelligence to make coverage decisions would help save them money. Even the Trump administration is testing AI’s usefulness in managing the prior authorization process for the Medicare program, as well as seeking to…
By ANISH KOKA I was listening to a conversation between two critical thinkers I respect greatly: geneticist/technologist/blogger Razib Khan and Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle. Their discussion was a freewheeling rant about the problems they see with the rise of populism on the left and right, but a throwaway comment related to the US physician shortage in the…
That is the title of a new paper published this week in Clinical Nutrition with co-authors Kyi-Sin Than, Khounish Sharma, Kirk W. Kerr, and Dhanasekhar Kesavelu. The abstract is below: IntroductionPediatric malnutrition is a significant global public health challenge, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. This study quantifies the lifetime, per-person economic impact of pediatric…
By MATTHEW HOLT I know you all care, so I am giving a 7th update on the telenovela about my Labcorp bill for $34.95. The very TL:DR summary of where we are so far is that in May 2025 I had a lab test to go with the free preventative visit that the ACA guarantees, but I…
The Host Julie Rovner KFF Health News @jrovner @julierovner.bsky.social Read Julie’s stories. Julie Rovner is chief Washington correspondent and host of KFF Health News’ weekly health policy news podcast, “What the Health?” A noted expert on health policy issues, Julie is the author of the critically praised reference book “Health Care Politics and Policy A…
Robin Carlton pays about $650 a month for a plan on the Missouri health insurance exchange that covers him and his two teenage kids. That monthly total is $200 higher than what he paid last year, due in part to the expiration in December of covid pandemic-era premium tax credits. But the self-employed St. Louis…
Katie Crouch says calling her state’s Medicaid agency to get information about her benefits can feel like a series of dead ends. “The first time, it’ll ring interminably. Next time, it’ll go to a voice mail that just hangs up on you,” said the 48-year-old, who lives in Delaware. “Sometimes you’ll get a person who…
MARQUETTE, Mich. — Providing abortions was the last thing Shawn Brown thought she’d be doing when she opened an urgent care clinic in this remote town in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. But she also wasn’t expecting the Planned Parenthood in Marquette to shut down last spring. Roughly 1,100 patients relied on that clinic each year for…
The Trump administration is quietly seeking unprecedented access to medical records for millions of federal workers and retirees, and their families. A brief notice from the Office of Personnel Management could dramatically change which personally identifiable medical information the agency obtains, giving it the power to see prescriptions employees had filled or what treatment they…
El médico de familia Eric Boose ha estado usando una herramienta de inteligencia artificial (IA) para volver a lo que él llama la “medicina a la antigua”: hablar con los pacientes cara a cara, sin tener que escribir en una computadora al mismo tiempo. “Realmente puedo sentarme, interactuar, concentrarme en ellos y escuchar”, dijo Boose,…