Julie Appleby is a senior correspondent, Kaiser Health News.

How businesses are handling COVID-19

Conditions
February 28, 2020

Chances are, if you work for a large company, you received an email like one sent to Volkswagen employees Monday: Coronavirus concerns mean some limits on business travel, everyone should remember to “wash your hands frequently” and stay home if sick.

As the viral illness, dubbed COVID-19, continues to spread, some employers are canceling conferences and limiting travel, checking supplies, and dusting off their emergency preparedness plans, just as they have …

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How businesses are handling COVID-19

An expensive treatment may be a victim of its own widening use

Meds
October 1, 2019

Medical treatment has knocked down tumors in 6-year-old Easton Daniels’ brain, but the drug used also wiped out his immune system.

To bolster his immune function and help keep him healthy, he has visited a hospital for intravenous infusions of immune globulin about every month for the past year and a half.

But in early July, his family was stunned by a letter from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital: “All of Easton’s appointments canceled …

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An expensive treatment may be a victim of its own widening use

Americans and Canadians use more post-surgery opioid pain pills

Meds
September 10, 2019

Americans and Canadians are seven times more likely to fill a prescription for opioid pain pills in the week after surgery than Swedes, says a study published Wednesday, one of the first to quantify international differences.

More than 75% of patients in the U.S. and Canada filled a prescription for opioids following four common surgeries, compared with 11% of Swedes, researchers report in JAMA Network Open. Americans also …

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Americans and Canadians use more post-surgery opioid pain pills

Is direct contracting an answer to soaring health costs?

Policy
August 20, 2019

Colorado’s ski resort areas in Summit County have a high cost of living, among the highest in the country. The people who visit these places — Keystone, Breckenridge and Copper Mountain ­— can afford it.

Many of those who live and work there can’t, especially when they get sick.

In addition to expensive rent, they pay some of the steepest health insurance premiums in the nation. Hospital costs are …

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Is direct contracting an answer to soaring health costs?

Smart beds and sleep apps: Don’t sleep on their data collection practices

Tech
June 10, 2019

Your bed could be watching you.

OK, so not with a camera.

But if you have any of a variety of “smart beds,” mattress pads or sleep apps, it knows when you go to sleep. It knows when you toss and turn. It may even be able to tell when you’re having sex.

Sleep Number, one company that makes beds that can track heart rate, respiration and movement, said it collects more than …

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Smart beds and sleep apps: Don’t sleep on their data collection practices