Molly Taft
American patients who have gone through hell and high water to get a coronavirus test may be alarmed to learn about false negatives – what happens when a patient who actually has the virus gets a negative result on a laboratory test. The rate of accuracy for nasal swab tests, the mechanism overwhelmingly used to […]
Jeanne Pinder
“With so much still uncertain about how widespread hospitalizations for coronavirus patients will be around the United States, a new analysis says premiums could increase as much as 40 percent next year if the pandemic results in millions of Americans needing hospital stays,” Reed Abelson writes in The New York Times. “Health plans went into […]
Jeanne Pinder
“Doctors are hoarding medications touted as possible coronavirus treatments by writing prescriptions for themselves and family members, according to pharmacy boards in states across the country,” Ellen Gabler writes for The New York Times. “The stockpiling has become so worrisome in Idaho, Kentucky, Ohio, Nevada, Oklahoma, North Carolina, and Texas that the boards in those […]
Tina Kelley
By TINA KELLEY and PHOEBE PINDER (Note: Coronavirus news is changing quickly. We’re trying to update as warranted.) As the coronavirus spreads, many Americans with symptoms wonder if they should get tested, and where. (We discuss how much it can cost to do so here.) Do you have something we need to know about this? […]
Jeanne Pinder
We have heard a lot lately about mammogram screenings that cost a ton of money — especially when the plain-vanilla screening mammogram doesn’t deliver a definitive result, so the woman has to go for a second level of screening (ultrasound or MRI), for which she is charged what can be large amounts of money. See […]
Jeanne Pinder
I noticed this piece on Reddit, and found it intriguing. I wrote to the author, who gave us permission to reproduce it here. Hey everyone, I used to work in medical billing/finance and have a pretty good understanding of how the billing system works. I have successfully used this knowledge to negotiate my medical bills, […]
Jeanne Pinder
By TINA KELLEY and PHOEBE PINDER (Note: Coronavirus news is changing quickly. We’re updating as warranted.) Coronavirus (COVID 19) testing is making headlines nationwide. Amid a flood of reports of people being charged high prices for testing, or being unable to find testing, there’s a need for reliable information (for a database of test sites, […]
Jeanne Pinder
“Gracie Van Brunt hasn’t left her house in seven months and won’t for five more,” Fortesa Latifi writes over at Teen Vogue. “In those five months, she will recover from a bone marrow transplant, turn 26, and be kicked off her parents’ health insurance plan. Ever since the passage of the Affordable Care Act in […]
Jeanne Pinder
“After returning to Miami last month from a work trip in China, Osmel Martinez Azcue found himself in a frightening position: he was developing flu-like symptoms, just as coronavirus was ravaging the country he had visited,” Ben Conarck writes for The Miami Herald. “Under normal circumstances, Azcue said he would have gone to CVS for […]
Jeanne Pinder
HCCI’s annual reports examine year-over-year and 5-year cumulative trends in health care spending for individuals with employer-sponsored insurance, segmented by health care service category. Downloadable tables and interactive tools allow for further exploration of the data that power these reports. This year’s report found that average annual health care spending for people with employer-sponsored insurance […]
