"The letter turned out to be legitimate. Daly-Mack is one of about 2.5 million North Carolinians whose medical debt was erased under a new statewide agreement with hospitals. The hospital wiped away her $459 debt, dating back to a 2014 emergency room visit for a sinus infection."
https://www.npr.org/2026/01/21/nx-s1-5678541/north-carolina-undue-medical-debt-erased
#healthcare #hospitals #MedicalDebt #CostsOfCare #NorthCarolina #medicaid
"The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is continuing to pay Medicare Advantage (MA) plans more -- $76 billion more in 2026 -- than if those same patients were enrolled in traditional fee-for-service Medicare."
https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/medicare/119500
#healthcare #Medicare #MedicareAdvantage #CMS #billing #coding #CostsOfCare
"The summit underscored just how closely Republicans have hitched themselves to the MAHA campaign, banking on its popularity to give them an electoral bounce in the midterms. But the strategy carries risks, because support for Kennedy is cratering and polls show voters care more about reducing health care costs than MAHA priorities such as ending vaccine mandates and promoting raw milk."
#PublicHealth #vaccines #food #MAHA #misinformation #insurance #CostsOfCare #USpol
"Millions of middle-class Americans who have ACA health plans are facing soaring premium payments in 2026, without help from the enhanced subsidies that Congress failed to renew. Some are contemplating big life changes to deal with new rates that kicked in on Jan. 1.
It often falls to women to figure out a family’s insurance puzzle."
#healthcare #ACA #obamacare #insurance #families #CostsOfCare
“The Affordable Care Act has given a number of small business owners or self-employed people or gig workers a kind of flexibility to be able to have that type of income,” said Cynthia Cox, a vice president at KFF, a nonprofit health policy research, polling and journalism organization who has no relation to Stacy Cox.
https://19thnews.org/2026/01/affordable-care-act-women-business-owners-impact/
#healthcare #ACA #insurance #CostsOfCare #business #entrepreneurs #USpol
"Asked for specific policy details, Oz said it was a 'broad framework' and referred further questions to a White House official who spoke on background. The official also did not provide detailed answers to reporters' questions but did say that this future legislation would not replace other possible laws."
#healthcare #ACA #insurance #DrugPrices #CostsOfCare #HealthPolicy #USpol
"It has also become a big driver in the number of older single mothers in the U.S. at a time when the country's overall birth rate is declining. The number of unmarried women in their 40s who are having babies has grown by 250% in the last 30 years, according to data from the government. A portion of these women have partners, but many don't."
https://www.npr.org/2026/01/12/nx-s1-5647761/ivf-fertility-motherhood-40s-cost-donor-decision
#healthcare #fertility #IVF #ReproHealth #ReproJustice #insurance #CostsOfCare
New case study from the center left think tank #thirdway about #maine #hospital consolidation and how it's "ripping off patients"
As a Maine doc, the only omission I see is that they fail to discuss Maine's #certificateofneed law which allows hospitals here to block lower cost competitors. That's part of why we send some patients out of state for lower cost tests and surgeries.
https://www.thirdway.org/report/fixing-maines-broken-hospitals-a-case-study
#Capitation involves a lot more than paying #primarycare a monthly fee. It creates perverse incentives for #familymedicine docs and other PCPs to ration care.
#directprimarycare #costsofcare #healthreform
https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/compensation-pay-primary-care-shortage-solution/
@pluralistic Pertinent to #healthreform #costsofcare #MedMastodon
@petersuber
Much of this is due to #feeforservice billing paradigm and prepaying for routine care via #healthinsurance
For #primarycare, it's simpler to dump both. That makes primary care efficient enough that we can provide it (and free phone calls and messages) for $44 to $99/month when the hospital clinic down the street is charging $173 to $351 per visit.
Save the insurance for big , expensive problems.
All those false positives ("indidentalomas") from full body #MRI will get expensive workups and then follow up studies that will be paid by the rest of us via higher insurance premiums and taxes.
Get some data first please. Failing that, add a special tax on these to cover the extra workups upfront instead of socializing their false positive costs to everyone.
#medmastodon #costsofcare #radiology #evidencebasedmedicine #ebm #sbm #sciencebasedmedicine
4. #maine is one of many states that still have Certificate of Need laws that had the goal of reducing oversupply/use of services but now protect hospital networks (mostly regional monopolies) from lower priced competitors.
It's not rare for me to send patients out of state for cheaper studies, procedures, etc. The price savings are often big enough to make the trips worthwhile for them. The shorter wait for consults are a bonus.
2. A large proportion, if not most, of medical care is routine, non-urgent and potentially 'shoppable' but we prepay for it with the same mechanisms we use for ER visits and big inpatient stays causing great harm. It's like using auto insurance for oil changes or homeowner's to have the plumber fix the toilet.
Yes, I'm biased as a #directprimarycare doc but this realization was a big part of why I left #insurance paid practice eight years ago.
#dpc
#costsofcare
@ProPublica
Another reason I'm glad we left the insurance racket eight years ago.
#healthinsurance
#MedMastodon
#costsofcare
#dpc
#directprimarycare
'And I would put my babies to bed, and they'd say, "How many charts do you have left tonight, mommy?"'
#PBS with a story about #directprimarycare ( #DPC ):
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/innovative-clinic-helps-doctors-avoid-burnout-and-makes-healthcare-more-affordable
#MedMastodon
#costsofcare
#familymedicine
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/15/magazine/doctors-moral-crises.html
'...Until the system changes, some doctors are finding ways to opt out. I spoke to several physicians who have started direct-care practices, in which patients pay a modest monthly fee to see doctors who can offer them more personalized out-of-network care, without having to answer to administrators or insurers..."
#familymedicine #directprimarycare
#MedMastodon
#costsofcare
@STAT #flu
The local branch of #maine 's big hospital network won't run flu tests locally. "Rapid" test results come back the next day so we added point of care flu testing this week to reduce antibiotic use for pneumonias that might be due to flu.
Since the tests only cost us $10, we don't charge for them. We try not to nickle and dime our patients.
