Medicine and Health

Subterms

    Latest story

    125 Shares

    UnitedHealth’s Move to End Cyberattack Loan Lifeline Upsets Medical Providers

    by

    The company lent roughly $9 billion to practices affected by a vast cyberattack on its payment systems last year. Medical practices are now suing the health care colossus, saying it is pressuring them to repay funds.Two independent medical practices in Minnesota once hoped to expand operations but have spent the past year struggling to recover from the cyberattack on a vast UnitedHealth Group payment system.Odom Health & Wellness, a sports medicine and rehabilitation outfit, and the Dillman Clinic & Lab, a family medicine practice, are among the thousands of medical offices that experienced sudden financial turmoil last year. The cyberattack against Change Healthcare, a division of United, paralyzed much of the nation’s health-care payment system for months.Change lent billions of dollars to medical practices that were short on cash but has begun demanding repayments.Dillman and Odom are suing United in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis, accusing the corporation of negligence related to the cyberattack and claiming they sustained excessive expenses because of the attack’s fallout.In addition, Odom and Dillman asserted in court filings that the company’s insurance arm, UnitedHealthcare, has in turn been denying claims to cover patient care for being submitted late.Lawmakers viewed the chaos caused by the cyberattack as a result of United’s seemingly insatiable desire to buy up companies like Change, alongside doctors’ practices and pharmacy businesses. The widespread disruption was a reminder of how deeply United’s sprawling subsidiaries had become embedded in the nation’s health care system.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    More stories

    • 125 Shares71 Views

      in Elections

      Citing N.I.H. Cuts, a Top Science Journal Stops Accepting Submissions

      by

      With federal support, Environmental Health Perspectives has long published peer-reviewed studies without fees to readers or scientists.Environmental Health Perspectives, widely considered the premier environmental health journal, has announced that it would pause acceptance of new studies for publication, as federal cuts have left its future uncertain.For more than 50 years, the journal has received funding from the National Institutes of Health to review studies on the health effects of environmental toxins — from “forever chemicals” to air pollution — and publish the research free of charge.The editors made the decision to halt acceptance of studies because of a “lack of confidence” that contracts for critical expenses like copy-editing and editorial software would be renewed after their impending expiration dates, said Joel Kaufman, the journal’s top editor.He declined to comment on the publication’s future prospects. “If the journal is indeed lost, it is a huge loss,” said Jonathan Levy, chair of the department of environmental health at Boston University. “It’s reducing the ability for people to have good information that can be used to make good decisions.”The news comes weeks after a federal prosecutor in Washington sent letters to several scientific journals, including The New England Journal of Medicine, with questions that suggested that they were biased against certain views and influenced by external pressures.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares64 Views

      in Elections

      Patient Aboard an Ambulance Fatally Stabs a Firefighter Paramedic

      by

      The emergency worker in Kansas City, Mo., was stabbed in his chest while transporting a patient in what started as a routine call on Sunday, officials said.A member of the emergency medical services in Kansas City, Mo., died on Sunday after being stabbed by a patient who was being transported to a hospital in what officials said started out as a “routine medical call.”The patient stabbed the emergency worker, Graham Hoffman, a 29-year-old firefighter paramedic, in the chest, piercing his heart, city officials said in a news release.A suspect was in custody but had not been publicly identified. A motive for the attack was not immediately known.The episode began after Kansas City police officers were dispatched to a “routine medical call” early on Sunday to check on a woman who was reported to be walking along a section of highway near North Oak Trafficway, the police said.Officers found the woman and requested help from the emergency medical services for further unspecified treatment. While en route to the hospital, the patient “produced an edged weapon” and stabbed Firefighter Hoffman, the police said.Graham Hoffman, a firefighter paramedic, was fatally stabbed during a call in Kansas City, Mo., on Sunday.Kansas City Fire DepartmentFirefighter Hoffman’s partner called a crew emergency, and additional Fire Department and Police Department personnel responded. Firefighter Hoffman was taken to North Kansas City Hospital.“Despite the heroic efforts of KCFD paramedics, the hospital medical team, Firefighter Hoffman succumbed to his injuries in the intensive care unit,” the city said.Firefighter Hoffman had been a member of the Kansas City Fire Department since 2022, according to the news release.The police are working with the Clay County prosecutor on criminal charges, the city said.“We will demand accountability be applied not just to the suspect, but also for any steps in the system that fell short,” said Quinton Lucas, the mayor of Kansas City. More

    • 150 Shares91 Views

      in Elections

      ‘A Veneer of Official Medical Knowledge’: Three Opinion Writers on Kennedy’s Tenure

      by

      Alexandra Sifferlin, a health and science editor for Times Opinion, hosted a written conversation with the Opinion columnist Ross Douthat and the Opinion writers Jessica Grose and David Wallace-Wells about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s first two months as secretary of health and human services.Alexandra Sifferlin: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vowed to tackle chronic disease and take on the food and pharmaceutical industries. But his response to a measles outbreak in the Southwest — and inflammatory remarks about autism at a press briefing — have drawn criticism from all sides.Ross, you’ve written about your own experiences with chronic illness and the limitations of the U.S. medical system. What’s been your view of Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement, and what do you make of his tenure as health leader so far?Ross Douthat: I think debates about the limitations of the U.S. medical system tend to be polarized in a very, shall we say, unhealthy way. On one side, you have people who haven’t hit the limits of medical consensus and knowledge in their own lives, and therefore struggle to understand why so many of their fellow citizens would want to wander outside those limits in search of answers or wisdom. On the other side, you have people with very good reasons for skepticism of conventional wisdom, but who have allowed that skepticism to become total, making them reject everything the establishment says while fastening onto a specific outsider narrative as an absolute alternative even if the evidence is lacking.On a lot of fronts, Kennedy and the MAHA movement exhibit the latter problem. There’s absolutely room for new research and new debate about the causes of chronic illness, or autism or obesity — all areas where the official understanding of things doesn’t have definite answers for a lot of people. And there’s always good reason for skepticism about the medical-industrial complex writ large. But Kennedy seems committed to his own set of low-evidence theories — the vaccine-autism link being the most prominent example — and he seems to be working backward from the outsider perspective, rather than trying to genuinely create dialogue between the establishment and its critics.David Wallace-Wells: I’m not sure it’s even just low-evidence theories. I worry about the quality of the evidence demonstrating the problem. One thing I’d really like to see an autism commission tackle is the seemingly simple question of to what degree we actually are really living through an epidemic. I think there are reasons to worry about an increase in cases, and about environmental factors contributing. But I also think the alarming charts you see showing exponential growth in prevalence are really not very credible, and yet they are what is powering our panic.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares74 Views

      in Elections

      Tariffs on China Aren’t Likely to Rescue Battered U.S. P.P.E. Industry

      by

      The few domestic companies that still make protective gear for health care workers have clamored for federal intervention. But they worry President Trump’s trade war with China won’t help.Few domestic industries have been as devastated by the flood of cheap Chinese imports as manufacturers of face masks, exam gloves and other disposable medical gear that protects health care workers from infectious pathogens.The industry’s demise had calamitous consequences during the Covid pandemic, when Beijing halted exports and American hospital workers found themselves at the mercy of a deadly airborne virus that quickly filled the nation’s emergency rooms and morgues.But as President Trump unveiled his tariff regimen earlier this month, and Beijing retaliated with an 84 percent tax on American imports, the few remaining companies that make protective gear in the United States felt mostly unease.“I’m pretty freaked out,” said Lloyd Armbrust, the chief executive of Armbrust American, a pandemic-era startup that produces N95 respirator masks at a factory in Texas. “On one hand, this is the kind of medicine we need if we really are going to become independent of China. On the other hand, this is not responsible industrial policy.”The United States once dominated the field of personal protective equipment, or P.P.E. The virus-filtering N95 mask and the disposable nitrile glove are American inventions, but China now produces more than 90 percent of the medical gear worn by American health care workers.Despite bipartisan vows to end the nation’s dependency on foreign medical products — and to shore up the dozens of domestic manufacturers that sprung up during the pandemic — federal agencies and state governments have resumed their reliance on inexpensive Chinese imports. Earlier this year, when California purchased millions of N95 masks for those affected by the Los Angeles wildfires, it chose masks made in China.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares135 Views

      in Elections

      Trump-Allied Prosecutor Sends Letters to Medical Journals Alleging Bias

      by

      An interim U.S. attorney is demanding information about the selection of research articles and the role of N.I.H. Experts worry this will have a chilling effect on publications.A federal prosecutor has sent letters to at least three medical journals accusing them of political bias and asking a series of probing questions suggesting that the journals mislead readers, suppress opposing viewpoints and are inappropriately swayed by their funders.The letters were signed by Edward Martin Jr., a Republican activist serving as interim U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C. He has been criticized for using his office to target opponents of President Trump.Some scientists and doctors said they viewed the letters as a threat from the Trump administration that could have a chilling effect on what journals publish. The health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has said he wants to prosecute medical journals, accusing them of lying to the public and colluding with pharmaceutical companies.One of the letters was sent to the journal Chest, published by the American College of Chest Physicians. The New York Times obtained a copy of the letter.The Times confirmed that at least two other publishers had received nearly identically worded letters, but those publishers would not speak publicly because they feared retribution from the Trump administration.In the letter to Chest, dated Monday, Mr. Martin wrote, “It has been brought to my attention that more and more journals and publications like CHEST Journal are conceding that they are partisans in various scientific debates.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 88 Shares168 Views

      in Elections

      How Much Vaccination Stops a Measles Outbreak?

      by

      <!–> [!–> <!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–>Just how many? To let you discover for yourself, we simulated an outbreak of a hypothetical disease, about as contagious as the flu. (A lot less contagious than measles.)–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–>We’d like you to contain it. But first, some basics:–><!–> –><!–> [!–> <!–> –><!–>Here’s a sick person in a […] More

    • 125 Shares114 Views

      in Elections

      Experts Doubt Kennedy’s Timetable for Finding the Cause of Autism

      by

      The nation’s health secretary announced that he planned to invite scientists to provide answers by September, but specialists consider that target date unrealistic.Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary, pledged on Thursday to seek out experts globally to discover the reasons for the increasing rates of autism in the United States.“We’ve launched a massive testing and research effort that’s going to involve hundreds of scientists from around the world,” Mr. Kennedy announced at a cabinet meeting held by President Trump. “By September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic and we’ll be able to eliminate those exposures.”“There will be no bigger news conference than that,” Mr. Trump replied.But scientists who have worked for decades to find a cause greeted Mr. Kennedy’s predicted timeline with skepticism.They said that a single answer would be hard to identify in a field of possible contributors including pesticides, air pollution and maternal diabetes.Dr. Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician and expert on environmental toxins, pointed to the current mass layoffs and cutbacks for research at Mr. Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services as one reason for doubting such quick progress.“Given that a great deal of research on autism and other pediatric diseases in hospitals and medical schools is currently coming to a halt because of federal funding cuts from H.H.S.,” he said, “it is very difficult for me to imagine what profound scientific breakthrough could be achieved between now and September.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares164 Views

      in Elections

      ‘The Pitt’ Captures the Real Overcrowding Crisis in Emergency Rooms

      by

      From the “chairs” to the hallway medicine, the show’s depiction of an emergency medicine system that is beyond capacity rings true for medical experts.The emergency department waiting room was jammed, as it always is, with patients sitting for hours, closely packed on hard metal chairs. Only those with conditions so dire they needed immediate care — like a heart attack — got seen immediately.One man had had enough. He pounded on the glass window in front of the receptionist before storming out. As he left, he assaulted a nurse taking a smoking break. “Hard at work?” he called, as he strode off.No, the event was not real, but it was art resembling life on “The Pitt,” the Max series that will stream its season finale on Thursday. The show takes place in a fictional Pittsburgh hospital’s emergency room. But the underlying theme — appalling overcrowding — is universal in this country. And it is not easy to fix.“EDs are gridlocked and overwhelmed,” the American College of Emergency Medicine reported in 2023, referring to emergency departments.“The system is at the breaking point,” said Dr. Benjamin S. Abella, chair of the department of emergency medicine at Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine in New York.“The Pitt” follows emergency room doctors, nurses, medical students, janitors and staff hour by hour over a single day as they deal with all manner of medical issues, ranging from a child who drowned helping her little sister get out of a swimming pool to a patient with a spider in her ear. There were heart attacks and strokes, overdoses, a patient with severe burns, an influencer poisoned by heavy metals in a skin cream.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More