ONE OF THE CENTRAL duties of the state Health Policy Commission is to set an annual cost growth benchmark, a target that serves as a guide rail of sorts for […]
Health Care
Posted inHealth Care
Key lawmakers like Baker health care priorities
KEY BEACON HILL lawmakers said on Monday they were supportive of Gov. Charlie Baker’s bid to tilt health care more toward behavioral and primary care, but they worried that the […]
Posted inOpinion
Why we need to reorient our health care system
The following is the testimony Gov. Charlie Baker delivered before the Legislature’s Committee on Health Care Financing on Monday. FOR THE PAST 50 years, the US health care system has […]
Posted inUncategorized
Runner attempts 24-hour run to raise mental health awareness
BILL WELLS has run marathons, ultramarathons, and even a 100-kilometer race. On Saturday, April 23, he will try to achieve a new milestone: he plans to run for 24 hours […]
Posted inOpinion
Public health system at a turning point
FOR NEARLY 25 YEARS, the first full week of April has been designated as National Public Health Week. This year, it comes at a critical turning point for the future of […]
Posted inOpinion
DPH gets it right on Mass General Brigham
THE LONG-RUNNING power struggle between Mass General Brigham, the state’s largest health and hospital system, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts took a decisive turn this past week. Department of Public […]
Posted inHealth Care
Mass General Brigham withdraws suburban expansion plan
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE MASS GENERAL BRIGHAM officials said Friday the hospital system has withdrawn its controversial proposal to build outpatient care centers in Woburn and Westborough and to expand […]
Posted inOpinion
With patients clamoring for care, we have a plan
MASSACHUSETTS HAS THE BEST health care in the country, if not the world. But the groundbreaking cures, leading-edge therapies, highly specialized clinicians, novel treatments, and sophisticated technologies mean nothing if […]
Posted inOpinion
Moderna should do its part, share its vaccine
THROUGH MOST of 2020, most of us had never heard of Moderna, a small start-up pharmaceutical company based in Cambridge. The company had brought no product to market and had […]
Posted inHealth Care
Health cost benchmark called unfair, impractical
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE STATE GOVERNMENT’S central method of benchmarking health care spending trends is not a fair or appropriate way to evaluate changes in one of the economy’s biggest […]
Posted inOpinion
MassHealth struggling with autism services
IN MASSACHUSETTS, families supported by MassHealth are experiencing prolonged wait times to access services for children with autism. The state is currently undertaking a process to adjust reimbursement rates paid […]
Posted inHealth Care
Baker renews push for primary, behavioral health care
GOV. CHARLIE BAKER on Tuesday reintroduced a bill that would require hospitals and insurers to spend more on primary and behavioral health care, an attempt to revamp a medical system […]
Posted inOpinion
Dear DPH, here’s a strategy for handling MGB
The following is an open letter to the Department of Public Health after Mass General Brigham’s decision on Monday to seek a postponement until May 16 in filing a performance improvement […]
Posted inHealth Care
Mass. health care spending actually dropped in 2020
BE CAREFUL what you wish for. After years of ever-increasing spending on health care that left policymakers struggling to contain costs, Massachusetts finally found the key to lowering spending on […]
Posted inHealth Care
Bill tackles insulin affordability
THE COST OF treating her Type 1 diabetes for 15 years has taken a toll on Claire Clendenen’s life. Clendenen, who works in public health in Boston, just recently paid […]
Posted inHealth Care
Massachusetts will drop 3,700 from COVID death count
MASSACHUSETTS WILL REVISE its COVID-19 death count downwards by around 3,700 people as the state shifts to using a new definition to count deaths attributed to coronavirus. “We believe […]
Posted inHealth Care
Eating disorders are ravaging young people
AN EATING DISORDER epidemic is growing. Clinicians are seeing eating disorders in children at younger and younger ages, and now, due to the pandemic, eating disorders among teens are at an […]
Posted inHealth Care
Supreme Judicial Court to consider medical aid in dying case
WHEN ROGER KLIGLER was a practicing physician, he had terminally ill patients ask him to end their suffering. “As a physician, I felt I could not do that. I could […]
Posted inOpinion
COVID therapies important step on pathway out of pandemic
MASSACHUSETTS IS THANKFULLY seeing sustained decreases in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was limited testing capability, no specific therapies, and no […]
Posted inOpinion
Defying DPH, hospitals keep shuttering ‘necessary’ facilities
AFTER A DECADE of ceaseless hospital closures and consolidations, and with yet more essential services facing elimination – obstetrics and mental health at Norwood Hospital and pediatrics at Tufts Medical […]
Posted inThe Download
Local-option COVID approach slammed
Carlene Pavlos, executive director of the Massachusetts Public Health Association, says the Baker administration’s policy of leaving many of the major COVID decisions to local boards of health helps explain […]
Posted inUncategorized
Local-option COVID approach slammed
CARLENE PAVLOS, executive director of the Massachusetts Public Health Association, says the Baker administration’s policy of leaving many of the major COVID decisions to local boards of health helps explain […]
Posted inOpinion
DPH has final say on expansions, but will it use it?
AFTER RECEIVING input from the attorney general’s office and Health Policy Commission, the Department of Public Health is considering whether to approve or reject a proposal by Mass General Brigham […]
Posted inOpinion
Why lifting mask mandates is so divisive
ON FRIDAY, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its mask guidance for the first time since July—including for schools, where the debate on whether to mandate them […]