Jeanne Pinder
How much does a transvaginal ultrasound cost? It depends. In this case, she was billed for two ultrasounds, one pelvic (non-obstetric) and one transvaginal, for a total of $1,092.38. The insurer completely disallowed the pelvic (non-obstetric) one, for $614.18, and charged her $421.29 for the transvaginal one, which applied to her deductible. The insurer wrote, […]
Jeanne Pinder
Looking back over the last year, our Covid work has taught us some really important and interesting things, culminating in our five months helping distribute vaccines an undervaccinated neighborhood in New York City. We started the year in a flurry of reporting on why people were having a hard time getting access to the new […]
Jeanne Pinder
You need to prove you got vaccinated — maybe at the border, maybe at the door of the bar, or at the airline gate or the sports arena. What to use? There’s always your paper vaccine record. And yet a number of electronic vaccine passes have sprung up, some more useful and reliable than others. […]
Jeanne Pinder
By Jeanne Pinder and Virginia Jeffries At-home Covid tests are very hard to find. And the prices are spiraling up, despite promises by city, state and federal governments in the United States to make them available for free. New York Health + Hospitals, the New York public housing entity, is passing out free boxes of […]
Jeanne Pinder
The combination of the surge in the new Omicron Covid variant, people’s decisions to travel for the holidays and the shutdown of some public testing sites has driven a sudden overnight change in the Covid testing landscape. Many people who had settled on a testing place in their neighborhood have now found that place has […]
Jeanne Pinder
“Ridiculous, seemingly arbitrary price markups are a defining characteristic of the $4-trillion U.S. healthcare system — and a key reason Americans pay more for treatment than anyone else in the world,” David Lazarus writes over at The Los Angeles Times. “But to see price hikes of as much as 675% being imposed in real time, […]
Jeanne Pinder
“Survivors of severe Covid-19 are more than twice as likely to die over the following year than those who experienced milder symptoms or remained uninfected, according to new research published in Frontiers in Medicine, suggesting serious infections may cause significant damage to long-term health and underscoring the protection offered by vaccines,” Robert Hart writes over […]
Jeanne Pinder
By Jeanne Pinder and Virginia Jeffries How well do those electronic vaccine confirmation passes on your phone work? We did a little bit of digging, and found out that it’s a mixed bag. The Excelsior pass is the New York State version, and that’s our focus here. It or something similar is needed to show […]
Jeanne Pinder
The rollout of the Covid vaccine for children 5 through 11 years old, expected this week, is full of uncertainty. Will my pediatrician give it? What are the chances at CVS? My local independent pharmacy? What about a school clinic for all the kids at our school? Or the big state- and city-run sites? There’s […]
Jeanne Pinder
“So much help for seniors hangs in the balance as Democrats whittle away at the massive legislative package in Congress,” Trudy Lieberman writes for the Center for Health Journalism. “If by some chance Medicare recipients get new benefits to help pay for dental, vision and hearing services and lower prices for their costliest prescription drugs, […]
