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Doctors abandon a diagnosis used to justify police custody deaths. It might live on, anyway.
This story originally appeared at KFF Health News. Brooks Walsh hadn’t questioned whether “excited delirium syndrome” was a legitimate medical diagnosis before the high-profile police killings of Elijah McClain in Colorado in 2019 and George Floyd in Minnesota in 2020. The emergency physician in Bridgeport, Connecticut, was familiar with the term from treating patients who […]
Teens with addiction are often left to detox without medication
DENVER — When Denver Health wanted to open an inpatient opioid detox unit specifically for teens, doctors there searched high and low for a model to copy. They didn’t find one. Teens who land in emergency rooms with an opioid overdose generally receive naloxone to reverse the effects of dangerous drugs in their system and […]
As nonprofit hospitals reap big tax breaks, states scrutinize their required charity spending
This story originally appeared in KFF Health News. POTTSTOWN, Pa. — The public school system here had to scramble in 2018 when the local hospital, newly purchased, was converted to a tax-exempt nonprofit entity. The takeover by Tower Health meant the 219-bed Pottstown Hospital no longer had to pay federal and state taxes. It also […]
This panel will decide whose medicine to make affordable. Its choice will be tricky.
This story originally appeared at KFF Health News. Catherine Reitzel’s multiple sclerosis medication costs nearly $100,000 a year. Kris Garcia relies on a drug for a blood-clotting disorder that runs $10,000 for a three-day supply. And Mariana Marquez-Farmer would likely die within days without her monthly $300 vial of insulin. At best, a Colorado panel […]
As Colorado reels from another school shooting, study finds 1 in 4 teens have quick access to guns
This story originally appeared at KHN. One in 4 Colorado teens reported they could get access to a loaded gun within 24 hours, according to survey results published Monday. Nearly half of those teens said it would take them less than 10 minutes. “That’s a lot of access and those are short periods of time,” […]
Calls to overhaul methadone distribution intensify, but clinics resist
This story originally appeared at KHN. Days typically start early for patients undergoing opioid addiction treatment at Denver Recovery Group’s six methadone clinics in Colorado. They rise before dawn. Some take three buses to get to a clinic by 5 a.m. for a 15-minute conversation with a counselor and their daily dose of methadone, all […]
Wildfires and omicron prompt a special health insurance enrollment period in Colorado
A wildfire displaced thousands of Coloradans just as the omicron surge began sweeping through the state, so health insurance was likely not on many people’s minds when the regular enrollment period for the state’s health insurance marketplace ended Jan. 15. But now, because of those twin emergencies, everyone in the state will get another chance […]
Seeking refills: Aging pharmacists leave drugstores vacant in rural America
This story originally appeared at khn.org. Ted Billinger Jr. liked to joke that he would work until he died. That turned out to be prophetic. When Billinger died of a heart attack in 2019 at age 71, he was still running Teddy B’s, the pharmacy his father had started more than 65 years earlier in […]
How a doctor breaks norms to treat refugees and recent immigrants
“How a doctor breaks norms to treat refugees and recent immigrants” first appeared at khn.org. AURORA — Fatumo Osman, a 65-year-old Somali refugee who speaks limited English, was in a bind. She made too much money at a meal prep service job so she no longer qualified for Medicaid. But knee pain kept her from […]
How one rural town without a pharmacy is crowdsourcing to get meds
“How one rural town without a pharmacy is crowdsourcing to get meds” first appeared at khn.org. WALDEN, Colo. — The building that once housed the last drugstore in this town of fewer than 600 is now a barbecue restaurant, where pit boss Larry Holtman dishes out smoked brisket and pulled pork across the same counter […]