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Chief rural health correspondent Sarah Jane Tribble explains how millions of rural Americans live in counties with doctor shortages and where high-speed internet connections aren鈥檛 adequate to access advanced telehealth services.
Artificial intelligence products with lifelike voices are being marketed to schedule or cancel medical visits, refill prescriptions, and help triage patients. Soon, many patients might initiate contact with the health system by speaking not with a human but with AI.
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Taxpayers 鈥 through federal infrastructure programs 鈥 have paid billions of dollars to internet companies to hook up rural Americans. Some communities have nothing to show for it, leaving medically vulnerable rural patients disconnected and without access to telehealth.
Technological gaps handicap rural hospitals as billions in federal funding to modernize infrastructure lags. The reliance on outdated technology and piecemeal systems challenge staffs and erode patient care.
Rep. Ro Khanna of California warned of Trump administration 鈥渃uts鈥 to Medicare telehealth access hitting March 31. But if Medicare recipients lose telemedicine benefits that day, it will be because Congress failed to act.
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Many patients ready to leave the hospital end up lingering for days or weeks 鈥 occupying beds that others need and driving up costs 鈥 because of a lack of open spots at nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities. A few health systems are addressing this problem by moving post-acute rehab into the home.
Nearly 3 million Americans live sicker, shorter lives in the hundreds of rural counties where doctor shortages are the worst and poor internet connections mean little or no access to telehealth services.
The MiSalud app enables Spanish-speaking users in the U.S. to meet virtually with health professionals in Mexico via a smartphone app. At Taylor Farms in Salinas, California, the novel program has been a hit.
Telehealth startups including Ro and Nurx are spending millions to promote themselves as easy dispensers of medicines. Some companies offer care for birth control, sexual dysfunction, and more complex conditions, including behavioral health disorders and obesity.
California has a few major changes coming to its health policy landscape in 2025. New laws that took effect Jan. 1 ban medical debt from credit reports, allow public health inspections of private immigration detention centers, and ban toxic chemicals in makeup.
Despite the hype over artificial intelligence in medicine, the systems require consistent monitoring and staffing to put in place and maintain. Checking whether an algorithm has developed the software equivalent of a blown gasket can be complicated 鈥 and expensive.
The federal government put guardrails in place to limit unauthorized plan sign-ups and switches. But the changes could prove to be a burden to consumers.
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Toby Ewing, executive director of California鈥檚 Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission, is resigning amid an investigation into his conduct and revelations that he traveled to the U.K. courtesy of a vendor as he sought to protect state funding for its contract.
The director of a California state mental health agency traveled to the U.K. courtesy of Kooth, a digital mental health company with a $271 million contract to build a therapy app for the state鈥檚 youth. Weeks earlier, he pressed key legislative staffers to restore a proposed cut to Kooth鈥檚 funding.
Clinicians and researchers are searching for answers to whether an incidental finding on breast X-rays could improve the detection of cardiovascular disease risk among women.
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Dreaming of a Trump victory, Republicans have a wish list of health policy changes 鈥 including loosening Affordable Care Act regulations to make cheaper coverage available and ending Medicare drug price negotiations. Meanwhile, after a publicly reported death stemming from a state abortion ban, Vice President Kamala Harris is emphasizing the consequences of Trump鈥檚 work to overturn Roe v. Wade. Tami Luhby of CNN, Shefali Luthra of The 19th, and Joanne Kenen of Politico and Johns Hopkins University join 吃瓜不打烊 senior editor Emmarie Huetteman to discuss these stories and more.
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