states
SAN FRANCISCO — For years, Latinos represented the biggest share of new HIV cases in this city, but testing data suggests the tide may be turning. The number of Latinos newly testing positive for HIV dropped 46% from 2022 to 2023, according to a preliminary report released in July by the San Francisco Department of Public Health. The decrease could mark the first time in five years that Latinos haven’t accounted for the largest number of new cases, leading to cautious optimism that the millions of dollars the city has spent to remedy the troubling disparity is working. But outreach workers and...
California Healthline
Jamie Holmes says a surgery center tried to make her pay for two operations after she underwent only one. She refused to buckle, even after a collection agency sued her last winter. Holmes, who lives in northwestern Washington state, had surgery in 2019 to have her fallopian tubes tied, a permanent birth-control procedure that her insurance company agreed ahead of time to cover. During the operation, while Holmes was under anesthesia, the surgeon noticed early signs of endometriosis, a common condition in which fibrous scar tissue grows around the uterus, Holmes said. She said the surgeon late...
California Healthline
In the 18 months after Francine Milano was diagnosed with a recurrence of the ovarian cancer she thought she’d beaten 20 years ago, she traveled twice from her home in Pennsylvania to Vermont. She went not to ski, hike, or leaf-peep, but to arrange to die. “I really wanted to take control over how I left this world,” said the 61-year-old who lives in Lancaster. “I decided that this was an option for me.” Dying with medical assistance wasn’t an option when Milano learned in early 2023 that her disease was incurable. At that point, she would have had to travel to Switzerland — or live in the Dis...
California Healthline
JACKSON, Ga. — Ed Whitehouse stood alongside a state highway in rural Butts County, Georgia, and surveyed acres of rolling fields and forests near Interstate 75. Instead of farmland and trees, he envisioned a hospital. Whitehouse, a consultant for a local health care company that wants to build a hospital there with at least 150 beds, said the group could break ground within a year. The idea, he said, is to provide medical services beyond those currently provided by Wellstar Sylvan Grove Medical Center, an aging, nonprofit “critical access” hospital that offers limited services, including emer...
California Healthline
ATLANTA — At the shuttered Atlanta Medical Center, a “Stronger Together” mural sends a hopeful message near a summer spray of hydrangeas. The campus was mostly quiet on a recent weekend, since AMC closed almost two years ago. A lone security vehicle sat behind a chain-link fence, and pedestrians passed by without even a glance. In the town of Cuthbert, some 160 miles away, the Southwest Georgia Regional Medical Center also remains shut after closing four years ago, another Southern hospital casualty in a region dotted with them. Even a smaller facility replacing the former Cuthbert hospital “w...
California Healthline
A federal lawsuit in Texas against Planned Parenthood has a web of ties to conservative activist Leonard Leo, whose decades-long effort to steer the U.S. court system to the right overturned Roe v. Wade, yielding the biggest rollback of reproductive health access in half a century. Brought by an anonymous whistleblower and later joined by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the suit alleges the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and three Planned Parenthood affiliates defrauded the Texas and Louisiana Medicaid programs by collecting $17 million for services provided while it fought state ...
California Healthline
MOUND BAYOU, Miss. — In the center of this historically Black city, once deemed “the jewel of the Delta” by President Theodore Roosevelt, dreams to revitalize an abandoned hospital building have all but dried up. An art deco sign still marks the main entrance, but the front doors are locked, and the parking lot is empty. These days, a convenience store across North Edwards Avenue is far busier than the old Taborian Hospital, which first shut down more than 40 years ago. Myrna Smith-Thompson, who serves as executive director of the civic group that owns the property, lives 100 miles away in Mem...
California Healthline
Hundreds of Mississippians die every year from opioid overdoses, an epidemic that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands more nationwide. In a series of historic settlement agreements, pharmaceutical companies agreed to pay about $50 billion over 18 years for their role in fueling the crisis — and Mississippi has signed on to be part of the settlements. How the state and local governments choose to use this cash windfall in the years ahead will significantly shape Mississippi’s policies toward addiction treatment and prevention — as well as health care in general. We’ve broken down the key...
California Healthline
KFF Health News and KCUR are following the stories of people injured during the Feb. 14 mass shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl celebration. Listen to how children wounded that day are dealing with their injuries or emotional scars. Six months after Gabriella Magers-Darger’s legs were burned by sparks from a ricocheted bullet at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade in February, the 14-year-old is ready to leave the past behind. She is dreading the pitfalls of being a high school freshman, even as she looks forward to being back with friends and at color guard, dance, and volleyb...
California Healthline
For five years, Caren Blanzy received the same treatment at the same medical office in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The regular injections gave her relief from involuntary muscle contractions caused by a neurological disorder, she said. Her insurance picked up the tab. Then, the health system that owns her doctor’s office changed how it billed for her treatment — no longer coding it as an office visit, but instead as outpatient hospital services. That change meant Blanzy owed more than $1,100 for one treatment. She said she stopped receiving injections because she could no longer afford them. In th...
California Healthline
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