Facility fees are charges tacked on for visiting a doctor’s office or even a telehealth visit. They’re becoming increasingly common and they can add hundreds of dollars to your bill. “An Arm and a Leg” host Dan Weissmann wants to know how often this happens, where, and how much it costs patients. If you’ve ever seen a charge for a facility fee on your medical bill — especially for a visit or service that didn’t take place in a hospital — “An Arm and a Leg” wants to hear from you.Click here to share your story. It may be featured on an upcoming episode. Dan Weissmann @danweissmann Host and prod ..read more

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Jolynn Mungenast spends her days looking for ways to help people pay their hospital bills. Working out of a warehouse-like building in a scruffy corner of this former industrial town, Mungenast gently walks patients through health insurance options, financial aid, and payment plans. Most want to pay, said Mungenast, a financial counselor at Rochester Regional Health. Very often, they simply can’t. “They’re scared. They’re nervous. They’re upset,” said Mungenast, who on one recent call worked with an older patient to settle a $143 bill. “They do think ‘I don’t want this to aff ..read more

Jacqueline Saa has a genetic condition that leaves her unable to stand and walk on her own or hold a job. Every weekday for four years, Saa, 43, has relied on a home health aide to help her cook, bathe and dress, go to the doctor, pick up medications, and accomplish other daily tasks. Share Your Story With Us Have you or someone you know with disabilities unexpectedly lost Medicaid benefits since April 2023? Tell us about it here. contact us She received coverage through Florida’s Medicaid program until it abruptly stopped at the end of March, she said. “Every day the anxiety builds,” said Saa ..read more

In early 2020, with reports of covid-19 outbreaks making dire headlines, Trever Schapers worried about her father’s safety in a nursing home in Queens. She had delighted in watching her dad, John Schapers, blow out the candles on his 90th birthday cake that February at the West Lawrence Care Center in the New York City borough. Then the home went into lockdown. Soon her father was dead. The former union painter spiked a fever and was transferred to a hospital, where he tested positive for covid, his daughter said, and after two weeks on a ventilator, he died in May 2020. But when Trever Schape ..read more

TURLOCK — For much of his young life, Jorge Sanchez regularly gasped for air, at times coughing so violently that he’d almost throw up. His mother whisked him to the emergency room late at night and slept with him to make sure he didn’t stop breathing. “He’s had these problems since he was born, and I couldn’t figure out what was triggering his asthma,” Fabiola Sandoval said of her son, Jorge, now 4. “It’s so hard when your child is hurting. I was willing to try anything.” In January, community health workers visited Sandoval’s home in Turlock, a city in California’s Central Valley where dust ..read more

The FDA never inspected Johns Dental Laboratories during more than a decade in which it made the Anterior Growth Guidance Appliance, or “AGGA,” a dental device that has allegedly harmed patients and is now the subject of a criminal investigation. According to FDA documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the agency “became aware” of the AGGA from a joint investigation by KFF Health News and CBS News in March 2023, then responded with its first-ever inspection of Johns Dental months later. That inspection found that the Indiana dental device manufacturer didn’t require all cust ..read more

JACKSONVILLE, Ill. — Heather Crivilare was a month from her due date when she was rushed to an operating room for an emergency cesarean section. The first-time mother, a high school teacher in rural Illinois, had developed high blood pressure, a sometimes life-threatening condition in pregnancy that prompted doctors to hospitalize her. Then Crivilare’s blood pressure spiked, and the baby’s heart rate dropped. “It was terrifying,” Crivilare said. She gave birth to a healthy daughter. What followed, though, was another ordeal: thousands of dollars in medical debt that sent Crivilare and her husb ..read more

The Host Julie Rovner KFF Health News @jrovner Read Julie's stories. Julie Rovner is chief Washington correspondent and host of KFF Health News’ weekly health policy news podcast, “What the Health?” A noted expert on health policy issues, Julie is the author of the critically praised reference book “Health Care Politics and Policy A to Z,” now in its third edition. A new analysis finds that graduating medical students were less likely to apply this year for residency training in states that ban or restrict abortion. That was true not only for aspiring OB-GYNs and others who regularly treat pre ..read more

Bill Thompson’s wife had never seen him smile with confidence. For the first 20 years of their relationship, an infection in his mouth robbed him of teeth, one by one. “I didn’t have any teeth to smile with,” the 53-year-old of Independence, Missouri, said. Thompson said he dealt with throbbing toothaches and painful swelling in his face from abscesses for years working as a cook at Burger King. He desperately needed to see a dentist but said he couldn’t afford to take time off without pay. Missouri is one of many states that do not require employers to provide paid sick leave. So, Thompson wo ..read more

Wade Trammell recalls the time he and his fellow firefighters responded to a highway crash in which a beer truck rammed into a pole, propelling the truck’s engine through the cab and into the driver’s abdomen. “The guy was up there screaming and squirming. Then the cab caught on fire,” Trammell says. “I couldn’t move him. He burned to death right there in my arms.” Memories of that gruesome death and other traumatic incidents he had witnessed as a firefighter in Mountain View, California, didn’t seem to bother Trammell for the first seven years after he retired in 2015. But then he started cry ..read more