Since the reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022, anti-abortion rights advocates have continuously pursued laws and court cases to make access to abortion more difficult. A report published Tuesday finds those efforts haven't worked in one basic way: The number of abortions in the country hasn't budged. 'There were an estimated 1,126,000 abortions provided by clinicians in the U.S. in 2025 — that's pretty much unchanged from 2024,' says Isaac Maddow-Zimet, data scientist at the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit research organization that supports abortion access. A key way that abortions are now happening despite all of the state restrictions is through telemedicine. In 2023, the FDA under President Biden allowed mifepristone — one of the medications used for abortion — to be prescribed without an in-person appointment. At the same time, states that support abortion access have passed shield laws, which protect health care providers from legal risks when they prescribe to patients in states with bans. What that meant last year is that more people in states with restrictions had abortions through telemedicine, and fewer people traveled across state lines for abortion, according to the Guttmacher report.
Doctors across the nation are alarmed that skepticism fueled by rising anti-science sentiment and medical mistrust is increasingly reaching beyond vaccines to other proven, routine, preventive care for babies. A recent study in JAMA, which analyzed more than 5 million births nationwide, found that refusals of vitamin K shots nearly doubled between 2017 and 2024, from 2.9% to 5.2%. Other research suggests that parents who decline vitamin K shots are much more likely to refuse getting their newborns the hepatitis B vaccine and an eye ointment to prevent potentially blinding infections. Rates for that vaccination at birth dropped in recent years, and doctors confirm that more parents are refusing the eye medication. Innumerable social media posts question doctors' advice on safe and effective measures like vitamin K and eye ointment. And the Trump administration has repeatedly undermined established science. A federal advisory committee whose members were appointed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a leading anti-vaccine activist before joining the administration — voted to end the longstanding recommendation to immunize all babies against hepatitis B right after birth. On Monday a federal judge temporarily blocked all decisions made by the reconfigured committee.
Biomedical engineers at Brown University have developed a hydrogel-based wound dressing that releases antibiotics only in the presence of infection-causing bacteria, offering a potential new method for treating wound infections while limiting unnecessary use of antibiotic.
Medicare payment problems are generating steep financial hardships for some of Minnesota’s rural hospitals at a time when many are struggling to stay afloat. State hospital leaders and officials at several rural hospitals say they have been vexed by a recent payment processing change by CMS that is effectively holding back millions of dollars needed to pay the bills. Hospital leaders point the finger at a fairly new billing regimen CMS put in place nationally that is supposed to do a better job preventing improper Medicare billing. But a significant issue with the online software system that healthcare providers use to submit and manage their Medicare enrollment information has led to the denial of claims for so-called critical access hospitals — healthcare centers vital to the health of rural America. The updated billing method is intended to simplify administrative processes for those hospitals while ensuring compliance with Medicare requirements. But the enrollment data from these hospitals did not transfer correctly when the federal agency implemented its new system, resulting in claim denials and delayed Medicare payments.
CMS is swapping out faxing and mailing for streamlined electronic transactions, an action it says lets providers spend less time on administrative hassle and more time caring for patients. The Administrative Simplification; Adoption of Standards for Health Care Claims Attachments Transactions and Electronic Signatures Final Rule, scheduled to take effect in May, is projected to save the healthcare industry roughly $781 million annually by establishing national standards for the electronic exchange of clinical documentation used to support health care claims. The rule also adopts standards for electronic signatures to ensure secure, authenticated transmission of this information. CMS says providers have relied on outdated manual methods to submit additional claims-related documentation requested by health plans, including medical records, X-rays, clinical notes, telemedicine visit documentation, and laboratory results – all of which cause delays and unnecessary costs. The new standards establish a consistent, easy-to-use electronic framework for transmitting this documentation, improving efficiency across the entire healthcare system. The standards adopted in this rule apply to HIPAA-covered entities, including health plans, healthcare clearinghouses, and healthcare providers that conduct electronic transactions.
House Speaker Dan Hawkins intensified frustration among Republicans and Democrats by taking new steps to block legislation sought by hospitals and clinics to preserve integrity of a federal program restraining drug prices and generating revenue to care for indigent or uninsured patients in Kansas. The so-called 340B program compelled pharmaceutical manufacturers to sell drugs at a discount to eligible hospitals and clinics. It also required insurance companies to pay full cost for these prescriptions so the state's health care providers could generate supplemental revenue to expand patient services. Hawkins, a Republican candidate for state insurance commissioner who has worked in the insurance industry for 30 years, relied on his unilateral authority as House speaker to bottle up the health care bill overwhelmingly passed by the Kansas Senate. The Senate's bill would forbid private companies from making extraordinary demands for health information, claims data and purchasing documents not required to be disclosed by 340B program participants under state or federal law. The Senate's Defense of Drug Delivery Act would empower the state to investigate complaints along these lines and impose civil penalties against violators of the proposed state statute.