Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Community health centers, a national network of safety-net primary care providers, are poised to be on the front lines of the unwinding of the Medicaid continuous enrollment requirement when the public health emergency (PHE) ends. Health centers can be effective in raising awareness about Medicaid renewal requirements and in providing the help needed for enrollees to maintain Medicaid or transition to other coverage.

Community health centers are a national network of safety-net primary care providers serving low-income, medically underserved communities. Based on findings from a national survey of health centers, this brief examines how the pandemic has affected health center patients and services as well as the ongoing challenges health centers and their patients face.

Total spending among traditional Medicare beneficiaries fell in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, corresponding to lower service use across most types of Medicare-covered health care services compared to 2019. The lower spending in traditional Medicare contributed to the relatively slower growth in Medicare spending overall in 2020.

Medicare spending for skilled nursing facilities increased in 2020 despite an overall decrease in the number of Medicare beneficiaries using SNF services. The higher spending is explained by longer and more expensive SNF stays in 2020 compared to 2019, both of which increased more sharply for Medicare beneficiaries under the age of 65 than for older Medicare SNF users.

Misinformation and confusion about the COVID-19 vaccines and pregnancy is common among women who are pregnant or planning to become pregnant, with about three in ten saying they believe at least one false statement regarding the COVID-19 vaccines.

Misinformation and confusion about the COVID-19 vaccines and pregnancy remains widespread, with most people – including women who are pregnant or trying to get pregnant – either believing or being uncertain about at least one of three false claims they’ve heard, a new KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor shows. Among women…

In this column for the JAMA Health Forum, Larry Levitt highlights four changes implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic that helped to make health care more accessible and affordable and the prospects for those changes to telehealth, COVID-19 coverage, Medicaid and marketplace premiums continuing beyond the pandemic’s end.

In a new analysis, KFF researchers find that COVID-19 vaccination rates among nursing home staff increased by 25 percentage points nationally (63% to 88%) from when the Biden administration announced the vaccine mandate for health care workers in August 2021 to after vaccination deadlines passed in March 2022. Researchers analyzed…

This analysis uses nursing facility-level data reported by the federal government to track the increase in vaccination rates among nursing facility staff nationally and by state between August 2021 (when the vaccine mandate was first announced) and March 27th, 2022 (after the vaccine deadline for health workers had passed in all states). Additionally, this analysis provides state-level information on booster rates among nursing home staff and the prevalence of staffing shortages after all vaccination deadlines had passed.

About a Third of the Public Thinks the Nation is Facing a New COVID-19 Wave as Cases Rise About a fifth (18%) of parents with children under age 5 say they intend to get their child vaccinated “right away” once federal regulators authorize its use for their child’s age group,…