By Phil Galewitz – Most states’ Medicaid programs won’t text enrollees despite the urgency to reach them about renewing their coverage. A KFF report published in March found just 11 states said they would use texting to alert Medicaid recipients about the end of the covid public health emergency.
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Taking a break from who is hiring and who was hired, we rounded up some reading on the state of the healthcare workforce. You can’t open a paper, magazine, or watch news and not hear about the crisis that has evolved. Here are some insights and reports.
By Matt Volz & Phil Galewitz – HELENA, Montana — States frustrated by private laboratories’ increasingly long turnarounds for COVID-19 test results are scrambling to find ways to salvage their testing programs. Montana said that it is dropping Quest Diagnostics, one of the nation’s largest diagnostic testing companies.
By Phil Galewitz – Elliot Truslow went to a CVS drugstore on June 15 in Tucson, Arizona, to get tested for the coronavirus. The drive-thru nasal swab test took less than 15 minutes. More than 22 days later, the University of Arizona graduate student was still waiting for results.
By Phil Galewitz – It’s free and available everywhere. Yet most Americans skip the annual flu shot ― with the number of dispensed vaccines barely changed in the past decade, despite government removal of cost and access obstacles.
The thought leaders in our community are good about sharing their thoughts on the issues of today. Here are the top read and shared guest posts of October that we think deserve sharing again.
By Phil Galewitz – Worried its employees aren’t getting good enough care from doctors in their insurance networks, Walmart next year will test pointing workers in northwestern Arkansas, central Florida and the Dallas-Fort Worth area toward physicians it has found provide better service.
By Phil Galewitz – AZ Medicaid Director Jami Snyder heard many complaints about enrollees missing medical appointments because the transportation provided by the state didn’t show or came too late. So this summer she hatched a solution familiar to millions of Americans looking for an efficient ride: She turned to Uber and Lyft.
By Phil Galewitz – Accountable care organizations were among the key initiatives of the Affordable Care Act, designed to help control soaring Medicare costs. ACOs were expected to save the government nearly $5 billion by 2019, according to the CBO.