*This post was originally published on KFF Health News on November 8, 2025. It is published with open permission by that site. A new federal watchdog audit is ratcheting up pressure on government officials to crack down on billions of dollars in overcharges linked to Medicare Advantage home visits. But so far, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid… Read More »
Note: It’s election season. And time to take a look at the health policy positions of the presidential candidates. KFF published this thorough and well-sourced analysis of the candidates’ competing positions on everything from health care and abortion to public health and gun violence. Enjoy. -The Editors The general election campaign is underway, spotlighting former… Read More »
This post was originally published on KFF Health News. It is published with open permission by that site. Measles is on the rise in the United States. In the first quarter of this year, the number of cases was about 17 times what it was, on average, during the same period in each of the four… Read More »
After seemingly endless negative pregnancy tests and a few early losses after rounds of alternate fertility treatments, I felt that in-vitro fertilization (IVF) was my only hope of becoming a mother. As I saw others conceiving naturally, or succeeding relatively quickly with less invasive assisted methods, my longing and desperation for motherhood only grew. I… Read More »
It was the tweet heard around the healthcare world. In 2018, after the American College of Physicians had published their position paper advocating gun control as a public health imperative, the National Rifle Association posted a tweet starting: “Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane.” Clinicians immediately began posting images and… Read More »
As part of its partnership with the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), Medical Care has published its first PCORI-sponsored article collection, which provides specific information about the costs that healthcare systems can expect to incur in promoting the uptake of specific evidence-based programs. In September’s special issue, five project teams that received Implementation Award funding from PCORI… Read More »
Ben King is joining our editorial team at The Medical Care Blog! Dr. King (he/him) is currently an Assistant Professor of Population Health at the new Tilman J Fertitta Family College of Medicine at the University of Houston. He has additional appointments in the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences, with the UH-Humana Integrated Health… Read More »
The rapid transition from in-person to care to telemedicine visits at the start of the COVID‑19 pandemic did not adversely affect the quality of care – and even improved some aspects of care – for patients with major depression in a major integrated health system, according to a new report. The study appears as part of… Read More »
Eli Lilly & Co.’s announcement that it is slashing prices for its major insulin products could make life easier for some diabetes patients while easing pressure on Big Pharma. It also casts light on the profiteering methods of the drug industry’s price mediators — the pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs — at a time when… Read More »
In this month’s podcast, Dr. Samy Anand gives an overview of The Medical Care Blog posts published in October and a preview of the journal articles in the November issue of Medical Care. Then, co-editor of the blog, Dr. Gregory Stevens, discusses the results of the midterm election and the results of ballot measures relevant to… Read More »
It’s that time of year again–APHA’s Annual Meeting! This year we’ll be meeting in Boston Nov. 6-9 with a digital event Nov. 14-16. I’m looking forward to seeing colleagues this year and getting to catch up with so many interesting people. Of course, I’m also excited about the excellent Medical Care Section Program. Here’s a… Read More »
As California settles into a third year of pandemic, covid-19 continues to pose a serious threat of death. But the number of people dying — and the demographics of those falling victim — has shifted notably from the first two years. Given the collective immunity people have garnered through a combination of mass vaccination and… Read More »
The Medicaid Outcomes Distributed Research Network (MODRN) was started by AcademyHealth and is a collaborative research network of state Medicaid agencies and university partners. The goal of the network is to allow analysis and learning about Medicaid by facilitating comparison across states and aggregate data with a shorter lag time than other available sources. This… Read More »
On this month’s episode of the Health Intersections Podcast, Samy Anand from the Medical Care Section recaps last month’s blog posts and previews September’s issue of the Medical Care journal. Check out these great reads. Next, Jess Williams, co-editor of the blog and podcast, interviews Dr. Cheryl Conner who is a Clinical Associate Professor at… Read More »
It is not too late to fix the US healthcare system. But every day spent in this folly, the problem gets worse. It is time to move this conversation forward. We are excited to share that in November 2021, the American Public Health Association (APHA) formally adopted a policy statement titled “Adopting a Single-Payer Health… Read More »
Reuter’s announced in January that diabetes deaths in the United States continue to surge well above pre-pandemic levels with over 100,000 Americans dying from diabetes in 2021. Given COVID-19’s relationship to diabetes, we may see this trend continue. Increasing deaths from diabetes is a clear call to action for new solutions. Historically, diabetes has been… Read More »
Peer review often elicits strong feelings among editors, authors, and reviewers. Many people have experienced the author and reviewer parts of the equation with both good and bad experiences. Flashback to when I was a newly minted Ph.D., I was thrilled with every request I received and diligently tried to provide useful reviews. However, I… Read More »
The opioid epidemic and substance use disorders have garnered national attention as overdose deaths continue at an alarming rate. Synthetic opioids – chiefly fentanyl – are the culprit in many of those deaths. The Commission’s report Earlier this month, the bipartisan Congressional Commission on Combating Synthetic Opioid Trafficking, with representatives from many Federal agencies and… Read More »
The annual meeting of the American Public Health Association starts this weekend! This year the meeting is being held in person in Denver with lots of virtual options as well. I know everyone is excited about getting back together and connecting as a community. I can’t wait to connect with friends and colleagues and meet… Read More »
COVID-19 has uncovered and multiplied health workforce equity challenges across the US. In the early days of the pandemic, healthcare workers faced incredible personal risk from an unknown, highly contagious, deadly disease. Insufficient personal protective equipment (PPE) and reprimand and dismissal by employers for speaking out worsened this risk. As waves of COVID-19 swept across… Read More »
Until a few years ago Veterans generally had to visit a Veterans Affairs (VA) facility to receive care. Long wait times and long travel times caused problems for Veterans who needed healthcare. In response, the VA MISSION Act (2018) expanded access to community providers and increased benefits for caregivers. A recent supplement in Medical Care explores some… Read More »
The Biden Administration’s proposed infrastructure investments are an example of an upstream effort to address disparities related to social determinants of health (SDOH). As mentioned in our previous blog post, SDOH are the conditions or circumstances within which people live, and these differ based on the distribution of power, money, and resources. The systems and… Read More »
In military medicine, exercises, such as a mass vaccination points-of-dispensing (POD) scenario, test preparedness capacity, and drill for potential real-world public health emergency scenarios. Exercises are designed to challenge medical teams to work under pressure and problem solve according to conditions presented in the exercise scenario. A benefit of medical exercises in the military is… Read More »
What is telehealth? Telehealth involves using technology to facilitate healthcare interactions but has not been used extensively in Medicare in the past. The use of telehealth may be particularly relevant where there are geographic barriers such as a lack of local providers or a public health emergency such as the coronavirus pandemic. There are a… Read More »
COVID-19-related scams are spreading nearly as fast as COVID-19 and threatening the health and safety of our communities. Since January 2020, people across the country have filed over 426,000 COVID-19-related complaints to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) about fraud, identify theft, and other consumer protection. They have reported losses totaling over $397 million. As trusted… Read More »
Now more than ever, we need students engaged in improving healthcare access, delivery, and quality. The Medical Care Blog is committed to elevating student voices. We have just wrapped up our student blog competition that was co-sponsored by the Medical Care Section of APHA! The posts submitted by students ranged broadly, from administrative to political… Read More »
The pandemic has consistently exposed the underlying inequities and effects of systemic racism on American Indian (AI) and other marginalized communities. The health equity challenge of 2021 is around COVID-19 vaccine equity. Over the first months since the vaccine has become available, communities of color are not getting shots in the arm at the same… Read More »
Throughout the past decade, the U.S. has seen a dramatic shift in addiction medicine research, clinical practice, and related stigma in seeking care. In a pair of blog posts, we will explore the top six trends related to treating the opioid crisis. And we’ll consider what may be next. The Opioid Epidemic Opioid addiction has… Read More »
To help you prepare your APHA and other meeting abstracts for submission, the APHA MC Health Equity Committee presented a webinar on the topic of Making Your Abstract Awesome + Getting It Accepted. We had limited spots available for the live event, but we recorded it and are happy to share that recording and the… Read More »
This fall, CMS launched two new websites: Care Compare and the Provider Data Catalog (PDC). Both tools replaced the eight existing Compare tools and data.medicare.gov, which were sunset last year. The data included on Care Compare is intended to help Medicare beneficiaries make informed decisions about their care. While there have been articles and press releases… Read More »
During the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted health inequality created by social determinants of health (SDoH) in the United States. SDoH include all aspects of the living environment, social support, safety, well-being, and resource availability, directly or indirectly influencing physical health outcomes. Consideration of SDoH is critical for successful comprehensive COVID-19 vaccine rollout.… Read More »
The Medical Care Blog regularly welcomes and features the voices of students from public health, medicine and other health professional fields. Most of our student contributors are earlier in their careers than the health care providers, public health professionals, and academic researchers who contribute to our dialogue most often. But they are frequently experts in… Read More »
Now more than ever, we need students engaged in improving healthcare access, delivery, and quality. The Medical Care Blog is committed to elevating student voices on these and other public health topics. To encourage excellent student blog posts, we are sponsoring a blogging competition with the Medical Care Section of the American Public Health Association.… Read More »
It’s that time again! The annual meeting for the American Public Health Association starts on October 24th with a twist–this year, the meeting is being held virtually. Everything from social events to scientific sessions will take place online. While I will miss seeing old and new friends in person, I am excited about the meeting.… Read More »
Earlier this fall the American Public Health Association (APHA) released a remarkable report on the relationship between Housing Equity and Health, “Creating The Healthiest Nation: Health and Housing Equity.” APHA’s Caucus on Homelessness is deeply appreciative of the report’s focus on US housing inequalities and the shortcomings of our current affordable housing programs to address… Read More »
In March, CMS and other Federal agencies announced temporary telehealth policy changes in response to the COVID-19 public health emergency. These changes promoted continued access to care while allowing for physical distancing. Virtual care encounters have increased since March. However, as the public health emergency has continued, there are questions about the future of virtual… Read More »
COVID-19 has exposed the cracks in the foundation of America’s rural community health system. These cracks include increased risk of facility closures, loss of services, low investment in public health, maldistribution of health professionals, and payment policies ill-suited to low-volume rural providers. As a result, short-term relief to stabilize rural health systems and long-term strategies… Read More »
What are the potential impacts of COVID-19 on health care utilization? How will changes in healthcare use impact quality measures? Researchers are asking many key questions to understand the impacts of COVID-19. It is clear that trends in healthcare use are changing. These changes will likely affect quality measure scores in the future. This is… Read More »
Note from the Editors: Last week capped two jam-packed weeks of political nominating convention activities. COVID-19 was discussed at both conventions. The Washington Post fact-checked some of the health care claims at the Democratic convention. Here, with the permission of Kaiser Health News and Politifact, we are republishing their recent fact-checking of the COVID-19 content from the Republican… Read More »
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to light the gross underinvestment in public health, primary care, and the social determinants of health in the United States. Yet, this experience gives us a chance to rethink our health and social service systems, as these are often siloed. We see education, employment, healthcare, housing, and other social services… Read More »
The U.S. government is reportedly harming people held in immigration detention centers with its excessive use of a common disinfectant. According to reports by immigrant advocacy groups, HDQ Neutral disinfectant is being sprayed dozens of times per day in enclosed environments. This is resulting in concerning health symptoms among detained people. This potentially egregious practice further… Read More »
With less than five weeks to go before welcoming a second child, the patient sat in my exam room in tears. By all accounts, this was a routine appointment at the end of a routine pregnancy. Except on this particular day, clutching family photos from their recent baby shower, the patient shared with me that… Read More »
Who is essential to the basic functioning of society? Who has to work to enable millions of us to stay safe in our homes during the COVID-19 pandemic? At some level, we all want to think that our jobs are “essential,” and in many senses, they are. They allow us to put food on the… Read More »
Women do not stop needing access to abortions in a pandemic. They should not need to place themselves and others at risk of COVID-19 to access one. But that is exactly what is happening — due in part to new bans, but mostly as a result of years of dwindling access across the country. The current… Read More »
The first reports of COVID-19, the name now used to describe the disease caused by a novel coronavirus, first emerged around New Year’s day of 2020. Since then, the conversation has shifted from containment efforts in Wuhan, China to social distancing and mandatory closures across the U.S., including in New York, California, Illinois [pdf], Massachusetts,… Read More »
The COVID-19 pandemic is placing healthcare professionals in the untenable position of rationing personal protective equipment (PPE) and working with suboptimal protection. This post explores which materials may be best suited for crafting homemade masks and considers how to use homemade masks productively. Personal protective equipment is critical when caring for patients with respiratory infection.… Read More »
Yesterday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) unveiled new guidance about using telehealth during this public health emergency due to the coronavirus outbreak. This guidance will help increase access to telehealth services. In addition, this will help people receive care who may not be able to visit their providers in person. While the… Read More »
COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, is spreading across the US and around the world. Can providers use telehealth to help identify and manage the novel coronavirus while helping organizations manage capacity and prevent the spread of COVID-19? Read on to find out more. Because of its airborne person-to-person transmission, coronavirus and related… Read More »
Patients are sometimes referred to as “frequent flyers” when they visit an emergency department multiple times for the same issue. Often this is because discharged patients miss necessary follow-up care. This results in further worsening health, and may contribute to the frequent flying. To address this cycle, patients may be referred to a community health… Read More »
An October 2019 Medical Care supplement describes a learning health care system: the VA Evidence Synthesis Program (ESP). The ESP is dedicated to making high-quality evidence accessible to improve health and healthcare for veterans. The articles in the issue describe the outcomes from integrating research synthesis with qualitative and quantitative data from health systems. These… Read More »