Hospitals dealing with staff shortages during the current covid surge are unable to tap into one valuable resource: foreign-trained doctors, nurses and other health workers, many with experience treating infectious diseases. Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Nevada are the only states to have eased credentialing requirements during the pandemic.
A KHN review found more than 20 states either don’t count or have incomplete data on the use of COVID-19 antigen tests, leaving the public in the dark about the true scope of the pandemic.
The shortages are so dire that nursing homes and other health centers are going to extraordinary lengths for masks, gowns and essential materials.
“The awful truth is families have no control over what’s happening,” one advocate says.
Many states are dramatically loosening regulations on nurse practitioners as the coronavirus pandemic increases demand for health care workers. But not California.
UnitedHealthcare is dropping hundreds of physicians from its New Jersey Medicaid network, separating patients from longtime doctors. Physicians charge the insurer is using its market power to shift business to practices it controls.
Nearly a decade ago, Dr. Jeffrey Brenner and his Camden Coalition appeared to have an answer to remake American health care: Treat the sickest and most expensive patients. But a rigorous study in the New England Journal of Medicine shows the approach doesn’t save money. “We built a brilliant intervention to navigate people to nowhere,” Brenner tells the “Tradeoffs” podcast.