Pertussis, or whooping cough, is circulating across Washington, with two cases reported in the student population at Washington State University on Tuesday.Read More
If you’re under 18 in Idaho, a new state law says you can no longer get any kind of health care outside of emergency treatment without consent from a parent. NWPB’s Rachel Sun reports.Read More
A couple of blocks off U.S. Route 12 in Walla Walla, Blue Mountain Heart to Heart has been treating people with substance use disorder for over a decade. But, for years, the nonprofit was unable to quickly offer a proven treatment for opioid use disorder: medication-assisted treatment.
Staffers would have to arrange for patients to get an assessment with a trained Read More
People living in north Idaho will have access to free health clinics this month. Read More
Idaho has one of the strictest abortion bans in the country. On April 24th, the U-S Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in a case to decide whether Idaho’s ban violates a federal law mandating emergency care.Read More
Three new medical residents will be joining Pullman Regional Hospital’s Family Medicine program in June. Read More
Idaho ranks last out of all 50 states for physicians per capita, and the problem could get worse without intervention.Read More
Cerca de 105.000 personas tienen derecho a obtener un seguro médico en Washington. Esto se debe a que, por primera vez, los residentes indocumentados pueden adquirir un seguro médico a través de Washington Health Plan Finder.Read More
For people with Type one diabetes, managing blood sugar levels is crucial to avoid life-threatening complications and live their day-to-day life. Medical devices can help with that, but they’re not perfect. That’s why some diabetic patients are relying on something else: a dog’s nose.Read More
When medical students or health care providers enter a simulation at the Center for Native American Health at Washington State University’s Spokane campus, they’re running through a situation that already happened to a Native American patient who faced real-world health consequences.Read More
Inland NW health care providers reassess how they provide care following 2 years of the COVID pandemic Listen NWPB’s Rachel Sun reports on how Inland NW health care providers have […]Read More
A needs assessment by the Innovia foundation and Lewis Clark Valley Healthcare Foundation found that among the many health care barriers residents face, one of the biggest is affordability.Read More
Washington’s eight-billion-dollar wine industry relies heavily on its workers, many of whom do not have easy access to healthcare. A non-profit winery called Vital Wines is looking to change that. Ashley Trout founded the non-profit in 2016.Read More
The pandemic has taken a massive toll on people's mental health. But a new report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirms what many of us are seeing and feeling in our own lives: The impact has been particularly devastating for parents and unpaid caregivers of adults.Read More
An out-of-state hospital is often the closest, most convenient option for patients and their families and can ensure patients get state-of-the-art care, since only a limited number of hospitals and physicians in the country have the skills and experience to best treat children with certain conditions.Read More
ALS, often called Lou Gehrig's disease after the New York Yankees first baseman who died of the disease in 1941, destroys motor neurons, causing people to lose control of their limbs, their speech and, ultimately, their ability to breathe. It's usually fatal in two to five years, though about 10% of people survive ten years or more.Read More
Everyone involved even tangentially in health care today is consumed by the coronavirus pandemic, as they should be. But the pandemic is accelerating a problem that used to be front and center in health circles: the impending insolvency of Medicare.Read More
Later this year, the high court will hear a case that seeks to invalidate the entire Affordable Care Act. In a court filing Thursday, the Trump administration fully supported the move.Read More
Hospitals in Washington are starting to act on the permission given them by Gov. Jay Inslee to resume non-essential medical procedures. Some may begin work by or before next week.Read More
An overblown immune response could be killing a portion of the sick, and some doctors think that new treatments being tested could help at least some of those patients.Read More
Michelle Bennett couldn’t hold her mother’s hand in those final moments, 10 days after Carolann Christine Gann tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Bennett couldn’t even go through her mother’s belongings as she prepared to bury her. So two people in protective gear did what she couldn't.Read More
Many people can ride the disease out at home, but doctors are getting a better idea of who should seek medical attention and when.Read More
The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide a lawsuit that threatens the Obama-era health care law, but the decision is not likely until after the 2020 election. The court said it would hear an appeal by 20 mainly Democratic states of a lower-court ruling that declared part of the statute unconstitutional and cast a cloud over the rest.Read More
Using data from an insurer that provides health coverage to about 20 million people per year across the United States, researchers found that visits to primary care providers made by adults under the age of 65 had dropped by nearly 25% from 2008 to 2016.Read More
Geriatric assessment includes an evaluation by a physical therapist, a psychological assessment, a cognitive exam and a complete physical and medical history. The doctor takes all these factors into account and tallies a score for their patient to help guide their decision-making about the patient's treatment.Read More
In response to a rash of nursing home closures in Washington, a Republican state senator is calling for an increase in Medicaid reimbursement rates and other steps to stave off additional closures. “We are in a crisis of skilled nursing facilities and beds,” said Sen. Steve O’Ban, a Pierce County Republican.Read More
In an interview with PBS NewsHour’s anchor and managing editor Judy Woodruff, Sanders criticized the current U.S. health care system as “dysfunctional” and said his plan would be less expensive than “if we do nothing.”Read More
As the Trump administration calls for expanding access to Medicare Advantage, a federal whistleblower lawsuit accuses a large Medicare Advantage plan of bilking Medicare out of $8 million.Read More
For years, families of the developmentally disabled in Washington and their advocates have been frustrated that services in an institution, like one of the state’s Residential Habilitation Centers (RHCs), are an entitlement, but services in the community are not.Read More
The administration's proposed adjustment to the wage index, a key factor used to set hospitals' Medicare payments, could help rural facilities while hurting those in cities. Read More
A new poll from NPR, Harvard and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation gives a glimpse into rural life in America today, finding that many people living in rural communities live on the edge financially.Read More
Millions of Americans who buy individual health insurance, and don't qualify for a federal subsidy, have been hit with sticker shock in recent years. Instability and uncertainty in the individual market — driven in part by changes Congress and the Trump administration made to the Affordable Care Act — have resulted in double-digit premium increases.Read More
In a recent study of patients treated by emergency medical responders in Oregon, black patients were 40 percent less likely to get pain medicine than their white peers. Why?Read More
President Trump praised the ruling by a court in Texas as supporters of the ACA said they will appeal.Read More
An initiative that would ban state funding for abortion is heading to the November ballot in Oregon, setting up an election battle over abortion in what has been regarded as one of the most pro-choice states in the country. Read More
Many people forced into labor or the sex trade seek medical help at some point, and health care workers are being trained to identify them and to offer assistance. Read More
Patients may think their insurers are fighting on their behalf for the best prices. But saving patients money is often not their top priority. Just ask Michael Frank about his hip surgery.Read More
For the past 16 years, Jill Hutton has been managing a pediatric clinic in Aberdeen that once treated 70 to 100 children a day. But now it’s empty. She’s working on shutting it down. For providers with large portions of their patients on Apple Health, the low reimbursement rate makes it difficult to stay in business.Read More
Tech evangelists say consumer electronics that sense, stream and interpret vital signs will lead to better health and lower costs. But skeptics say reliability and privacy issues still loom.Read More
The opioid epidemic has torn through the United States in recent years. Washington has not been spared. In 2016, more than 42,000 people died from opioid overdoses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Almost 700 of those deaths were in Washington, according to the state Department of Health.Read More
Oregon Health and Science University announced an immediate change to its transplant policy late Tuesday night that allows immigrants in the country illegally to receive life-saving medical care.Read More
Lew Zirkle, a doctor in Richland, Washington, works with thousands of surgeons all over the world to treat injuries in poor or war-ravaged countries. He will receive the U.S. Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service—the highest honor the Defense department gives to a non-career civilian—by Secretary James Mattis later this month.Read More
Immigrants without legal status are not eligible for government healthcare plans like Medicaid. So some Washington lawmakers want to create a program to cover some of their reproductive healthcare needs, including abortions, contraceptives and family planning.Read More
Washington's Insurance Commissioner is proposing legislation that would establish a so-called “reinsurance” program he says will provide stability in the market and lower individual premium costs. Read More
Advocates for single-payer health care in the U.S. often look to Canada as a model. But some American doctors practicing there wonder whether the U.S. is ready to call health care a right. Read More
