Healthcare affordability continues to decline as patients struggle with rising healthcare costs. Roughly half of U.S. adults report struggling to pay their medical bills. Patients are also frustrated with the lack of cost transparency, inaccurate estimates and confusion around what insurance covers and what’s owed out of pocket. When there’s a lack of understanding about…
A fast-spreading disease has been detected in Congo by the health authorities there that has claimed 31 lives as of yet while putting thousands at risk of the infection for new infection referred to as disease X. There is not much information about the illness. Still, there is a chance that it might be a…
This Issue Brief reviews the federal role in setting U.S. water fluoridation policies, discusses current federal recommendations for water fluoridation, and summarizes the extent of water fluoridation across U.S. states.
This fact sheet reviews major sources of coverage for women residing in the U.S. in 2023, discusses the impact of the Affordable Care Act on women’s coverage, and the coverage challenges that many women continue to face.
This edition examines the role of news influencers in spreading misinformation, misleading narratives about harm reduction amid disparities in opioid overdose, and biases in artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare.
This report provides an analysis of donor government funding to address family planning in low- and middle-income countries in 2023, which totaled US$1.47 billion, and was an increase of 7% (US$101 million) compared to the 2022 amount (US$1.37 billion); although, it was still below the peak level reached in 2019 (US$1.58 billion). The overall increase…
These reports track funding levels of the donor governments that collectively provide the bulk of international assistance for family planning activities and is part of an effort by KFF that began after the London Summit on Family Planning in 2012. It presents their bilateral assistance to low- and middle-income countries as well as contributions to…
Collecting payments from patients has always been tough. Confusing bills, missed reminders and affordability concerns often lead to delays. Billing teams get bogged down in follow-up calls and paperwork, leaving little time for complex cases and a big question mark over whether they’re using their time efficiently. As patients shoulder a greater share of their…
This data note examines the characteristics of nursing facilities and the people living in them with data from Nursing Home Compare, a publicly available dataset that provides a snapshot of information on quality of care in each nursing facility, and CASPER (Certification and Survey Provider Enhanced Reports), a dataset that includes detailed metrics collected by…
A new KFF analysis finds higher Medicare spending among people who switched from Medicare Advantage to traditional Medicare than for similar beneficiaries who were in traditional Medicare all along. Medicare spent an average of 27% more on such beneficiaries, according to the analysis, which examined health costs in traditional Medicare for both groups in the…More