Category: access to health care

Physician-Owned Hospitals Foster Competition and Reduce Costs, Doctors Say

Dr. Terry Gerard became a doctor because he wanted to help people. The emergency room physician from Durant, Oklahoma, told The Epoch Times that he now feels he spends more time helping insurance companies get paid than he spends with his patients. “Medicine has a lot of bureaucracy; it creates a barrier between the patient…


ANALYSIS: New Report on Best and Worst States for Healthcare Misses Important Factors

Mississippi ranked the worst among the 50 states and Washington, for overall healthcare access, quality, services, costs, and outcomes, according to a new Commonwealth Fund Scorecard on State Health System Performance. Oklahoma, West Virginia, Texas, and Arkansas rounded out the bottom five states, according to the 2023 report compiled by the nonprofit foundation. The report was released…


Health Care Professionals Call for Standardized Provider Directories

Inaccurate health care provider directories cause stress, unnecessary expense, and aggravation for insurance customers every day, according to witnesses testifying before a Senate Committee on Finance hearing on May 3. “Ghost networks are an ongoing, persistent problem,” said committee chairman Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) Witnesses called on Congress to take steps to standardize directories and…


One-Quarter of Canadians Over 45 Struggled to Access Health Care in 2020, Study Shows

In fall of 2020, 25 percent of Canadians between the age of 45 and 85 had challenges accessing health-care services during the first nine months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and 8 percent of those studied did not go to a hospital or see a doctor when needed, according to a new study. “Substantial unmet health…