Most people know the “middleman” drives up the cost of everything, but few Americans see how a “middleman” in healthcare is contributing to spiraling costs. The general public, and surprisingly many physicians, don’t know the Affordable Care Act requires insurance companies to spend at least 80 to 85 percent of their premium dollars on medical care. The MLR or Medical Loss Ratio states if an...
In the realm of healthcare, medical records are invaluable documents that contain vital information about an individual’s health history, diagnoses, treatments, and medications. Access to medical records is not only essential for providing quality healthcare but also for patients to understand their health status and make informed decisions about their care. However, the release of medical...
ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. It was 2022 when pediatrician Tom Herr realized just how many babies on the Rosebud reservation in South Dakota were already infected with syphilis when they took their first breaths. He was seeing more and more patients who’d spent their first weeks...
Diabetes, weight loss and now heart health: A new family of drugs is changing the way scientists are thinking about obesity — and more uses are on the horizon Few drugs have achieved the stardom that semaglutide, marketed in the United States as Ozempic or Wegovy, has today. A synthetic, injectable version of an intestinal hormone, it is the flagship of a new category of drugs initially...
Some researchers are targeting artificial foods as a leading public health problem. As with so many dietary issues, though, the evidence tells a more nuanced tale. After decades of searching, many scientists believe they have finally pinned down the main problem with our modern diets—the factor driving ever-escalating rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and any number of other serious...
Q&A — Legal scholar Robert Mikos The push to legalize magic mushrooms, MDMA, LSD and other hallucinogens is likely to heighten tensions between state and federal law, drug law expert Robert Mikos says When Oregon’s first psilocybin service center opened in June 2023, allowing those over 21 to take mind-altering mushrooms in a state-licensed facility, the psychedelic revival that had been...
