Health News Archives - Page 15 Of 25

A health insurance alternative left a pastor with a big hospital bill : Shots

Jeff and Kareen King received a hospital bill for $160,000 a few weeks after Jeff had a procedure to restore his heart rhythm.

Bram Sable-Smith/KHN

hide caption

toggle caption

Bram Sable-Smith/KHN

Jeff and Kareen King received a hospital bill for $160,000 a few weeks after Jeff had a procedure to restore his heart rhythm.

Bram Sable-Smith/KHN

Kareen King calls it “the ultimate paradox”: The hospital that saved her husband Jeff’s heart also broke it.

What Happened Jeff King, of Lawrence, Kan., needed his heart rhythm restored to normal with a procedure called an ablation — sooner rather than later, his doctor said. Jeff asked the hospital for a cost estimate, but said he didn’t hear back before his scheduled surgery in January 2021 at Stormont Vail Health in Topeka, Kan.

The real pain came when the bill arrived in the mail a few weeks later. The Kings, who were uninsured at the time, were on the hook for nearly all of the cost.

Jeff King, 63, Lawrence, Kan.

Approximate Medical Debt: $160,000

Medical Issue: Heart ablation

Jeff and Kareen King received the bill for $160,000 a few weeks after Jeff had the procedure to restore his heart rhythm. The Kings were initially on the hook for almost all of it.

Instead of signing up for traditional health insurance, the Kings had joined what’s called a “medical cost-sharing plan” with a company called Sedera, which describes its service as a “refreshing non-insurance approach to managing large and unexpected health care costs.” With this alternative to health insurance, members agree to share one another’s expenses. The plans are often faith-based and have surged in popularity in recent years because they can be cheaper than traditional insurance — the Kings said their plan cost $534 a month, plus an additional $118 a month to join a direct primary care medical practice.

But the sharing plans offer fewer protections than insurance and come with provisos. The Kings said their plan did not fully cover preexisting conditions like Jeff’s heart condition for the first two years of coverage — and he needed the surgery after 16 months.

In a statement a Sedera spokesperson said it’s important that members understand the cost-sharing model and membership guidelines. “Sedera members read and agree to these prior to joining,” the statement read.

The Kings have dabbled in all sorts of health coverage in their 42 years of marriage. Jeff’s work as an evangelical pastor in his hometown of Osage City, Kan., almost never provided insurance for the couple or their five children, all of whom are now grown. The exception came during Jeff’s most recent stint leading a congregation, starting in 2015. Kareen remembered feeling “unworthy” of the $1,800 a month the congregation paid for their insurance.

“We certainly had never come up with those kinds of premiums ourselves,” she recalled.

But Jeff decided he had to leave that job in 2018. He said he felt forced out over differences with some of his congregants on eternal damnation (“As a loving parent, I could never punish my child forever”) and gay marriage (“Maybe God is a whole lot more inclusive than we are”).

After Jeff resigned, the Kings briefly bought insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace, but later dropped it because they weren’t eligible for subsidies and felt they couldn’t afford it.

That’s when they joined the Sedera plan. They knew the preexisting condition clause was a gamble, but medication had managed Jeff’s heart condition for years, and they didn’t expect he’d need medical procedures to address it.

What’s Broken: Without employer-sponsored insurance or federal subsidies to help fund their coverage, the Kings felt priced out of traditional insurance. But being uninsured left them exposed to hospital charges that ordinary patients typically never see.

Hospital charges are generally understood by health economists to bear little resemblance to the actual prices that are typically paid. Instead, they are more of an opening salvo in the high-stakes negotiations between hospitals trying to get as much money as they can for providing care and insurance companies trying to pay as little as possible.

But patients lack the bargaining power of large insurers, which may cover hundreds of thousands of patients in any given hospital’s catchment area. For patients like Jeff, the main recourse is to go through a hospital’s financial assistance program, although even with that help many patients can’t afford the bills hospitals send them.

Stormont Vail’s assistance program eventually knocked about $107,000 off Jeff’s original bill a few months later. Sedera provided a negotiator to help him haggle over costs.

Stormont Vail provided $19.5 million in financial assistance in tax year 2020 and wrote off about $13 million in bad debt, according to tax filings. Its net revenue from patient services was $838.7 million.

An $80,000 surprise bill points to a loophole in a new law to protect patients

Bill Lane, a Stormont Vail administrator, said that in addition to providing financial assistance, the hospital works with patients facing high bills and offers payment plans with zero interest. Payments are often in the range of 10{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} of a person’s monthly income,” Lane said. For some patients the hospital has a “catastrophic discount” program that caps their balance at 30{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} of their gross household income. The hospital also works with a local bank to provide loans to patients to pay their bills. And the hospital sometimes sends patient balances to debt collection agencies.

Lane said he generally recommends that patients carry traditional insurance. He also said the hospital offers a “patient estimates module” and suggests patients wait to schedule surgery, if possible, if they want an estimate “to make an informed decision.”

What’s Left: Despite Sedera’s two-year waiting period to cover preexisting conditions, the plan did give Jeff $15,000 to help with his bills. After Jeff paid that to the hospital and then negotiated for several months, his final balance was reduced to $37,859.34 in November 2021.

For his payment plan, Jeff said he was told the hospital would accept no less than $500 per month — the equivalent of an additional mortgage payment for the Kings. Jeff estimates it will take the family more than six years to pay it off.

“I never expected this to not cost me anything,” Jeff said, “but I wasn’t expecting what it turned out to be either.”

The Kings are piecing together the funds to pay what they owe the hospital. A few months after Jeff’s ablation, they sold their home in Osage City — where they raised five children and where Jeff grew up — and bought a smaller house in Lawrence. They had hoped to use that money to build their retirement account, since Jeff’s decades of pastoral work didn’t include a pension or 401(k).

Instead, the home sale is helping pay Jeff’s medical debt. Kareen has part-time jobs, and the couple leveraged their life insurance policy, as well.

Jeff began work as a hospice chaplain — for the extra income, but especially to qualify the couple for health insurance. That meant less time for his passion project, running a nonprofit called Transmuto through which he provides spiritual guidance.

In February, Kareen checked again on whether the couple could afford Affordable Care Act insurance so Jeff could get back to Transmuto full time. Her Google searches for the federal government’s health insurance marketplace (HealthCare.gov) instead unwittingly landed her on websites that sell consumer information to insurance brokers. Speaking to one of those brokers on the phone, she bought what she said she was told was an Aetna plan. But it turned out to be a membership in a cost-sharing plan with a company called Jericho Share, which has received over 160 complaints on the Better Business Bureau website in the past year.

Jericho Share spokesperson Mark Hubbard said in a statement that the organization is “issuing full refunds when there is consumer confusion” and is continuing to “evaluate and update our marketing efforts to increase transparency and awareness.”

Hubbard also said Jericho Share is cooperating with regulators in California and New Hampshire that have questioned whether the organization meets state requirements of a health care sharing ministry. California is also questioning whether Jericho Share has indeed received 501(c)(3) nonprofit status from the IRS.

After canceling that plan and getting their money back, the Kings eventually did sign up for an ACA marketplace plan. Jeff has reduced his hours as a chaplain, freeing up more time for Transmuto. All in all, the couple feels pretty fortunate.

“It’s just so tragic the way our system is,” Jeff said. “It puts so many people into impossible financial straits.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national, editorially independent program of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation).

With public health on the line, here’s how local health departments are fighting misinformation

Oklahoma City
KHN
—

By the summer of 2021, Phil Maytubby, deputy CEO of the health department here, was concerned to see the numbers of people getting vaccinated against covid-19 slipping after an initially robust response. With doubt, fear, and misinformation running rampant nationwide — both online and offline — he knew the agency needed to rethink its messaging strategy.

So, the health department conducted something called an online “sentiment search,” which gauges how certain words are perceived on social media. The tool found that many people in Oklahoma City didn’t like the word “vaccinate” — a term featured prominently in the health department’s marketing campaign.

“If you don’t know how your message is resonating with the public,” Maytubby said, “you’re shooting in the dark.”

Across the country, health officials have been trying to combat misinformation and restore trust within their communities these past few years, a period when many people haven’t put full faith in their state and local health departments. Agencies are using Twitter, for example, to appeal to niche audiences, such as NFL fans in Kansas City and Star Wars enthusiasts in Alabama. They’re collaborating with influencers and celebrities such as Stephen Colbert and Akbar Gbajabiamila to extend their reach.

Some of these efforts have paid off. By now, more than 80{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} of U.S. residents have received at least one shot of a covid vaccine.

But data suggests that the skepticism and misinformation surrounding covid vaccines now threatens other public health priorities. Flu vaccine coverage among children in mid-December was about the same as December 2021, but it was 3.7 percentage points lower compared with late 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The decrease in flu vaccination coverage among pregnant women was even more dramatic over the last two years: 18 percentage points lower.

Other common childhood vaccination rates are down, too, compared with pre-pandemic levels. Nationally, 35{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} of all American parents oppose requiring children to be vaccinated for measles, mumps, and rubella before entering school, up from 23{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} in 2019, according to a KFF survey released Dec. 16. Suspicion swirling around once-trusted vaccines, as well as fatigue from so many shots, is likely to blame.

Part of the problem comes down to a lack of investment that eroded the public health system before the pandemic began. An analysis conducted by KHN and The Associated Press found local health department spending dropped by 18{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} per capita between 2010 and 2020. State and local health agencies also lost nearly 40,000 jobs between the 2008 recession and the emergence of the pandemic.

This made their response to a once-in-a-century public health crisis challenging and often inadequate. For example, during covid’s early days, many local health departments used fax machines to report covid case counts.

“We were not as flexible as we are now,” said Dr. Brannon Traxler, director of public health at the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.

At the start of the pandemic, Traxler said, only two people worked on the media relations and public outreach team at South Carolina’s health department. Now, the team has eight.

The agency has changed its communication strategies in other ways, too. Last year was the first year, for example, that South Carolina published data on flu vaccinations every two weeks, with the goal of raising awareness about the effectiveness of the shots. In South Carolina, not even one-quarter of adults and children eligible for a flu shot had been vaccinated by early December, even as flu cases and hospitalizations climbed. The flu vaccine rate across all age groups in the U.S. was 51.4{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} last season.

Those who have opted out of both the covid and flu shots seem to be correlated, Traxler said.

Vaccine clinics operated by public health departments, like this one in Oklahoma County in November 2021, are a critical part of protecting public health.

“We’re really just trying to dispel misinformation that’s out there,” Traxler said. To that end, the health department has partnered with local leaders and groups to encourage vaccinations. Agency staffers have also become more comfortable talking to the press, she said, to better communicate with the public.

But some public health experts argue that agencies are still failing on messaging. Scientific words such as “mRNA technology,” “bivalent vaccine,” and “monoclonal antibodies” are used a lot in public health even though many people find them difficult to understand.

A study published by JAMA found that covid-related language used by state-level agencies was often more complex than an eighth-grade reading level and harder to understand than the language commonly used by the CDC.

“We have to communicate complex ideas to the public, and this is where we fail,” said Brian Castrucci, CEO of the de Beaumont Foundation, a charitable group focused on strengthening public health. “We have to own the fact that our communication missteps created the environment where disinformation flourished.”

Most Americans support public health, Castrucci said. At the same time, a small but vocal minority pushes an anti-science agenda and has been effective in sowing seeds of distrust, he said.

The more than 3,000 public health departments nationwide stand to benefit from a unified message, he said. In late 2020, the foundation, working with other public health groups, established the Public Health Communications Collaborative to amplify easy-to-understand information about vaccines.

“The good guys need to be just as well organized as those who seek to do harm to the nation,” he said. “One would think we would learn from this.”

Meanwhile, a report published in October by the Pew Research Center found 57{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} of U.S. adults believe “false and misleading information about the coronavirus and vaccines has contributed a lot to problems the country” has faced amid the pandemic.

“I was leery like everyone else,” said Davie Baker, 61, an Oklahoma City woman who owns a business that sells window treatments. When the shots became widely available in 2021, she thought they had been developed too quickly, and she worried about some of the things she’d read online about side effects. A pharmacist at Sam’s Club changed her mind.

“She just kind of educated me on what the shot was really about,” Baker said. “She cleared up some things for me.”

Baker signed up for her first covid shot in May 2021, around the same time the health department in Oklahoma City noticed the number of vaccines administered daily was starting to decline.

The department updated its marketing campaign in early 2022. Instead of using the word “vaccinate” to encourage more people to get their covid shots — the term the agency’s social media analytics revealed people didn’t like — the new campaign urged people to “Choose Today!”

“People don’t trust like they used to,” Maytubby said. “They want to make up their own minds and make their own decisions.” The word “choose” acknowledged this preference, he said.

Maytubby thinks the “Choose Today!” campaign worked. A survey of 502 adults in Oklahoma City conducted during the first half of 2022 found fewer than 20{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} of respondents reacted negatively or very negatively to a sample of “Choose Today!” advertisements. And an estimated 86.5{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} of adults in Oklahoma City have received at least one dose of a covid vaccine — a rate higher than the state average of about 73{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f}.

Other factors are likely at play that have helped bolster Oklahoma City’s vaccine numbers. In the same survey of Oklahoma City adults, some people who were recently vaccinated said family members or church leaders urged them to get the vaccine, or they knew someone who had died from covid. One person said money was the motivation — they received $900 from their employer for getting the covid vaccine.

Meanwhile, the war against misinformation and disinformation wages on. Childhood vaccination rates for the immunizations students typically need to enter kindergarten are down 4.5{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} in Oklahoma County since the 2017-18 academic year as parents increasingly seek exemptions to the requirements.

That worries Maytubby. He said the primary tactic among those trying to sow distrust about vaccinations has been to cast doubt — about everything from the science to their safety.

“In that aspect, they’ve been pretty successful,” Maytubby said. “Misinformation has changed everything.”

UK Leader Calls Crisis Meeting Over Struggling Health System

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak collected authorities ministers, medics and health assistance administrators in 10 Downing St. on Saturday for talks aimed at correcting a wellbeing treatment disaster that has seen countless numbers of sufferers stranded outdoors overflowing hospitals.

The federal government claimed it was “bringing together the finest minds from the overall health and care sectors to support share understanding and realistic solutions.”

The opposition Labour Social gathering dismissed the collecting as “a speaking store,” and experts warned there are no fast fixes for very long-brewing difficulties in the point out-funded Countrywide Wellbeing Service.

Britain’s health and fitness procedure faces an inferno of pressures, which includes rising need for care soon after pandemic restrictions have been eased a surge in flu and other wintertime viruses soon after two lockdown several years and employees shortages from pandemic burnout and a post-Brexit drought of European workers in the U.K.

Thousands of medical center beds are occupied by individuals who are fit to be discharged but have nowhere to go since of a dearth of spots for extensive-phrase treatment. Formal figures present that previous 7 days only a third of sufferers ready to be unveiled from a healthcare facility in England really still left.

Political Cartoons on Globe Leaders

UK Leader Calls Crisis Meeting Over Struggling Health System

Political Cartoons

That has led to ambulances caught outdoors hospitals with people who can not be admitted, and in turn to people today with wellbeing emergencies waiting around hours for ambulances to get there. Health and fitness leaders say the delays have most likely led to hundreds of fatalities.

On prime of that, a price tag-of-residing crisis fueled by soaring foodstuff and energy expenditures has left some wellness workers battling to make ends meet. Nurses and ambulance crews have staged walkouts, part of the country’s greatest wave of strikes in decades.

The pressures have renewed a very long-running debate about how to fund and operate the NHS, established up in 1948 to deliver free treatment to all, funded by way of taxation. As in other industrialized nations, extended life expectancies and an ageing inhabitants have greater demand on the broadly beloved but consistently overstretched company. Britain’s NHS has extensive been a political warm potato. Opposition politicians accuse the Conservative Occasion, in electric power because 2010, of continuously underfunding the health provider or looking for to privatize it by stealth.

Matthew Taylor, main government of health services umbrella human body the NHS Confederation, stated “this crisis has been a 10 years or additional in the generating.”

“High stages of flu, respiratory syncytial virus and rising COVID levels are exacerbating the problem but the induce is decades of below-financial commitment in staffing, funds and the absence of a extensive-term solution to the capacity-crunch experiencing social care,” he explained.

The governing administration suggests health funding continues to increase in serious phrases. It suggests community sector personnel are remaining made available pay will increase but that it can not pay for to give out raises to match inflation, which hit 11.1{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} in Oct.

Well being union leaders are thanks to fulfill the federal government on Monday in an endeavor to close the strikes.

Goals for a healthy 2023? Keep them low-key and sustainable : Shots

Sometimes the best new year's resolution is quiet time and self care.

It’s 2023, and after the last couple years we’ve all had on this planet, a lot of people are not in the mood for goal-setting. In fact, for many of us, maybe the best advice right now is to just lean back and get better at doing nothing. (Seriously, this is NPR giving you permission to relax. It’s for your own good.)

Still, if you find yourself taking stock of your life and health and looking for ideas to reset, science has your back. Here are a handful of evidence-based suggestions from NPR’s recent health reporting that could help you refresh body and mind.

The best part? These ideas are less about will power and more about finding new motivation for self care. Here’s to feeling better with less self-judgment this year!

1) Set healthy boundaries to protect your energy

In a nod to Shonda Rhimes’ 2016 bestseller Year of Yes, podcast host and Broadway producer Zach Stafford is declaring 2023 his “year of maybe.”

“It is exhausting to say yes to every single thing,” Stafford said on his podcast Vibe Check. “I want to be intentional about everything I do, whether it’s a work project or just getting drinks with someone.”

Many of us could benefit from setting boundaries around how we spend our time and energy, but we often worry about how other people might feel if we say “no thanks.”

Therapist Nedra Glover Tawwab, author of Set Boundaries, Find Peace – talked to NPR’s Life Kit team about navigating this tricky territory. Her tips include:

Check for signs, such as a surge in anxiety, that indicate you might need a boundary.
If a friend wants to connect and you’re not in the right headspace, say that and call them back later.
Say no to requests that you don’t actually have the time or energy to fulfill.

Maybe 2023 is the year you start teaching others how to treat you.

Food journalist Barry Estabrook did the research and learned that most diets don’t really work in the long term for most people.

Michele Abercrombie/NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Michele Abercrombie/NPR

Food journalist Barry Estabrook did the research and learned that most diets don’t really work in the long term for most people.

Michele Abercrombie/NPR

2) Skip the fad diet and forge your own path

Every year, there are an abundance of memberships, apps, cookbooks and smoothies available to help us lose weight or get healthier. But do these things work?

After his doctor “read him the riot act” over his high blood pressure and cholesterol, investigative food journalist Barry Estabrook dove into the diet world. He pored over nutrition studies, interviewed weight-loss gurus, and dug into the history of American dieting. He tried a dozen diets over three years and ended up sticking to none.

Estabrook documented his food journey in a book called Just Eat: One Reporter’s Quest for a Weight-Loss Regimen That Works. He eventually lost some weight without gaining it back – after he tuned in to his own particular habits and preferences. He shared some of his takeaways with NPR, such as:

Be realistic about your lifestyle. Do you have the time to chop lots of vegetables, or bake bread from scratch? Try changes that don’t require a massive overhaul.
“Lead” your diet instead of following one. Observe how you eat normally and identify a few areas you could adjust. Estabrook realized he took in a lot of calories through drinking alcohol, so he cut back.
Watch what you habitually chow down on. Estabrook noticed he was eating three or four bags of calorie-dense potato chips a week, just because they came with his sandwich.

Learn more about Estabrook’s misadventures, and the ways most diets fail us. And if his approach sounds like too much work, explore how intuitive eating lets you eat exactly what feels right to you.

Trust Your Gut: A Beginner's Guide To Intuitive Eating

3) Go ahead, have a little fun

Playing with Legos, roller skating, watching horror films … whatever you’re into, make more time for it in 2023. Last year when NPR asked some of our journalists to write about their hobbies, passions and pursuits, what came out is that these things can be empowering, perspective-shifting and just plain delightful.

Daniel Limpi/Getty Images/EyeEm

Kia Miakka Natisse is the co-host of NPR’s Invisibilia wrote about the liberating pleasure of taking up roller skating as an adult: “I have thrown myself into this hobby wholeheartedly, in a way that surprises me sometimes. It feels a lot like love,” she wrote. And that held true even when she kept falling. “As an adult, I’m not used to feeling that awkward in my body. I got real familiar with picking myself off the floor.”

Be inspired by Kia, or by Meredith Rizzo who discovered that fossil hunting helped stress melt away and put her into a flow state. Find your own thing this year that you do for no other reason besides fun. Because, as NPR reported, taking time for moments of joy can help rewire our brains to be more attuned to positive feelings and give us more of them.

Bones, teeth and really old rocks: How finding fossils takes me out of myself

Read more of our I’m really into series and then get out there and so something fun of your own.

4) Get off your butt, with a friend

At a line dancing social event held in Washington D.C., dancers showed off their moves set to hip-hop and R&B music.

Meredith Rizzo/NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Meredith Rizzo/NPR

At a line dancing social event held in Washington D.C., dancers showed off their moves set to hip-hop and R&B music.

Meredith Rizzo/NPR

Two tough realities about adulthood: It gets harder to make new friends, and to find time for exercise. If you’re like us, you might have joined a handful of day trips with hiking groups looking for company on the trail. But you also may have passed up the opportunity, worrying: Will the pace be too fast or the trail too steep? Will there be anyone my age in the group?

For Black Americans interested in spending time outdoors, those concerns can extend to, “Will there be anyone else who looks like me on the trail?” or “Am I going to have to deal with racism while trying to enjoy nature?” Jessica Newton founded Black Girls Hike, now called Vibe Tribe Adventures, to share the benefits of stress relief and camaraderie with other Black women. As NPR reported, her group and others like it are helping people of color “fit in” out-of-doors.

She’s onto something. Finding a squad – or even just one good friend – can make it easier to get active. It makes it less about will power and more about fun and bonding. Here are a few other ideas to find social connection while getting sweaty:

Soul Line Dancing: Come For The Fitness. Stay For The Friendships

5) Start a podcast habit

Tuning in to a podcast that makes you happy can be a great way to practice some mellow me-time. Even if you’re a loyal public radio listener, it feels good to take breaks from the news, and tune in to something a little more personal.

What do you want to accomplish in 2023? This New Year's resolution guide can help

Take for instance, NPR’s Life Kit, a podcast based around the belief that everyone needs a little help being human. Episodes run the gamut, from how to use spices to punch up a meat-free meal, to how host a successful theme party, to how to talk to someone who is considering suicide. And they’re all based on interviews with experts, and about 15 to 20 minutes long.

Don’t miss Life Kit’s New Years resolution planner, with 40+ tips and ideas. Listen to the show and subscribe on the NPR One App, or wherever podcasts are found.

Want to try something a little different? Peruse these fifteen binge-worthy podcasts from across the NPR Network.

New COVID omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 is ‘spreading like wildfire’ in US: Health experts reveal why

The new omicron subvariant, known as XBB.1.5, is spreading like wildfire across the U.S.

As colder weather brings in peak COVID infections, this novel mutation is beginning to worry health professionals.

So, what are some of the unique features of the strain that is now gripping swaths of the country?

THE NEW OMICRON SUBVARIANT XBB.1.5: WHAT YOU MUST KNOW NOW

First, this subvariant is immuno-evasive. It’s not as susceptible to natural immunity or vaccines — and it is very contagious, health professionals say.

In a phone interview with Fox News Digital, Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel explained that there are actually two subvariants at play: XBB and XBB.1.5.

New COVID omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 is ‘spreading like wildfire’ in US: Health experts reveal why

Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel, pictured, said that the XBB subvariants sweeping parts of the nation are “highly contagious,” with spike proteins acting like “suction cups.”
(Fox News)

XBB.1.5 is more contagious, said Dr. Siegel, who is also a professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City.

It’s more contagious due to its ability to grip tightly onto a host, he explained.

“The spike proteins are like suction cups,” he said.

“Viruses always want to be more and more transmissible and infect more hosts.”

“So, the more it can get a grip … the more easily it transmits from cell to cell,” he added.

CDC: FLU SEASON STARTING TO WANE AFTER BRUTAL START, INCLUDING AT LEAST 12,000 DEATHS

Both XBB subvariants are “highly contagious,” Siegel added, since each omicron variant is “out-competing its predecessor.”

Dr. Shad Fani Marvasti, associate professor and director of public health and prevention at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix, told Fox News Digital that each new strain develops with the intention of overshadowing those that went before it.

Dr. Shad Marvasti, associate professor and director of public health and prevention at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix, said he hopes that COVID variants will become “less severe.”
(Shad Marvasti, MD, MPH)

“Viruses always want to be more and more transmissible and infect more hosts,” he said.

In some cases, there’s a “trade-off” between mutations, in which some may become more transmissible but less virulent in terms of the health impact, Marvasti also said.

This is the hope for omicron and its developing variants, such as the “sticky” XBB, he noted.

‘GREAT CONCERN’: INVASIVE GROUP A STREP CASES SPIKING IN SOME PARTS OF US — CDC IS INVESTIGATING

He said he hopes that “we start seeing [the variants becoming] less severe,” he said.

“And that can be both a function of the evolution of the virus … and also the fact that more people have been exposed to the virus through either vaccination boosters or previous infections,” he said.

A nurse administers a pediatric dose of the COVID-19 vaccine to a young girl. Dr. Marc Siegel noted that since fewer hospitalizations are occurring with current COVID subvariants, they are actually less severe, though health professionals are not sure why this is.
(ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)

Dr. Siegel added that so far there’s “no evidence” that XBB is more virulent.

“If it’s spreading like wildfire and it’s not killing more people, that means it’s less virulent,” he said. “But we don’t know the reason for that.”

“It’s definitely the majority of cases in the Northeast, and we expect that to be for the whole country.”

Currently, XBB.1.5 accounts for almost 41{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} of confirmed COVID-19 cases across the country, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

CHINA TO STOP TESTING, DISINFECTING IMPORTED FROZEN FOOD FOR COVID

The XBB mutation has picked up speed, jumping from just 21{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} of COVID-19 cases on Christmas Eve, the CDC noted.

During the last week of December 2022, XBB.1.5 made up 75.3{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} of COVID-19 cases in northeastern states.

Merline Jimenez, left, administers a COVID-19 nasopharyngeal swab to a person at a testing site in the international terminal at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) in December. The XBB subvariant will likely spread across the nation, Dr. Shad Marvasti said.
(Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Those states include Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont, the CDC said.

Even though XBB numbers are currently lower in western parts of the country, Dr. Marvasti of Arizona stressed there’s no doubt the subvariant will catch on just about everywhere else.

“It’s going to increase in the coming weeks no matter what level it’s at right now.”

“It’s definitely the majority of cases in the Northeast, and we expect that to be for the whole country,” he said.

“In Arizona, my expectation is that it’s going to climb pretty quickly, especially since we have a lot of winter visitors here this time of year, and we’re going to have more folks with the Phoenix Open and the Super Bowl,” he also said. (The Phoenix Open golf tournament takes place Feb. 6-12, 2023; the Super Bowl is Feb. 12, 2023.)

People are shown passing a COVID-19 testing site along a Manhattan street on Jan. 21, 2022 in New York City. Omincron variants are known for attacking the upper respiratory tract – the nose and sinuses – instead of the lungs, said Dr. Marvasti.
(Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

“It’s going to increase in the coming weeks no matter what level it’s at right now,” he added.

Although it’s still too soon to tell how the new strain will impact hospitalization and death rates, neither Siegel nor Marvasti is expecting a steep increase.

BELGIUM TO TEST WASTEWATER ON FLIGHTS ARRIVING FROM CHINA FOR COVID

Marvasti noted that hospitalizations have been less of an issue since omicron’s appearance.

Keeping up with vaccinations is important, yet Dr. Siegel said the constantly emerging variants question the efficacy of current vaccines on the market.

This is because omicron variants are known for attacking the upper respiratory tract — the nose and sinuses — instead of the lower respiratory tract in the lungs, he said.

“Which is one of the reasons why you see less people on ventilators,” he explained.

Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel, at left; Dr. Shad Marvasti of University of Arizona College of Medicine, at right. A microscopic COVID germ is shown in the center. Both medical professionals encourage people to take appropriate steps to stay healthy, including wearing masks and getting vaccinated, when appropriate.
(Fox News / Dr. Shad Marvasti)

Both experts stressed that even though symptoms may be less severe, people who are at high risk or immunocompromised should continue taking appropriate steps toward prevention, including wearing masks and getting vaccinated.

“There are a lot of things you can do to help boost immunity and improve your ability to fight off infections, including COVID.”

While keeping up with vaccinations is important, Siegel said, he added that these constantly emerging variants question the efficacy of current vaccines on the market.

The XBB’s immuno-evasive properties are “bothering” health experts the most, he noted.

At a recent news briefing, Harvard Medical School assistant professor of medicine Kathryn Stephenson said that even though the original COVID vaccines may have lost some of their punch against new variants, they’re still holding up well against severe illness and death.

Jordane Domain gets a COVID-19 test done by a health care worker on Jan. 13, 2022 in North Miami, Florida. Dr. Siegel noted that more research and better funding are required for COVID prevention, which might include inhaled vaccines in the future.
(Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

One possible solution could be incorporating Omicron-updated boosters to further enhance protection, she said.

This would require more research and funding into “better” vaccines such as inhaled vaccinations, said Dr. Siegel.

“My philosophy toward protection from this virus is the more immunity you have, the better,” he said.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

In an effort for everyone to stay healthy, Dr. Marvasti encouraged practicing other ways to boost immunity, including getting enough sleep, managing stress, reducing inflammation, eating healthier, taking probiotics, staying hydrated and exercising.

“People should recognize that there are a lot of things you can do to help boost immunity and improve your ability to fight off infections including COVID,” he said.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR HEALTH NEWSLETTER

Those who’ve come down with either XBB subvariant can continue treating it as they would any other coronavirus case.

Siegel also recommended the prescription medication Paxlovid as a treatment in some cases, under the guidance of a doctor.

Angelica Stabile is a lifestyle writer for Fox News Digital.

The Hidden Crisis in Primary Care Medicine | Healthiest Communities Health News

There is a hidden well being care disaster in The united states. Too handful of U.S. healthcare school college students are selecting to go into major treatment, and the present most important treatment medical professional workforce is not expanding fast adequate.

Information article content like to communicate about “burnout” in the health treatment job, but this time period has minimal application to what is basically happening to major care medical professionals in our state. Burnout implies a failing on the component of an individual – somebody is confused and not able to deal with occupation requires. “Moral damage,” on the other hand, shifts the concentration to the suboptimal do the job environments our health and fitness treatment method makes for physicians. It emphasizes that the paucity of principal care medical professionals is not a subject of specific failure, but of a larger sized method breakdown.

Fashionable overall health care programs demand key treatment doctors to commit too considerably time guiding a personal computer monitor dealing with digital health-related documents and clerical responsibilities at the price of viewing and encouraging clients. This type of office has limited enchantment for clinical university college students picking how they would like to spend their careers.

Information bears this out. The provide of key main treatment doctors in the U.S. has not held up with increasing demand from customers. Even though supply projections for advanced practitioners this kind of as nurse practitioners and doctor assistants in principal treatment are surging effectively earlier anticipated demand, there are persistent gaps among projected amounts of required household and inner medication practitioners and these envisioned to be in the workforce.

At the same time, latest many years have witnessed declining shares of U.S. allopathic, or M.D., health-related college college students filling internal and relatives medicine positions for their residency. Other folks, like osteopathic doctors, can fill such slots, nonetheless the American Association of Clinical Schools has projected a lack of 17,800 to 48,000 primary care health professionals in the U.S. by 2034.

The structural difficulties inside of our key treatment system extend to economic incentives. The captivating areas of key treatment – developing very long-expression relationships with patients and households, focusing on prevention and wellness rather than sickness administration, performing with a assorted individual population – maintain less sway with new health-related college grads saddled with hundreds of hundreds of dollars of debt. It helps make perception that aspiring physicians may pick out to go after extra financially lucrative professional medical specialties, like medical procedures or dermatology.

Survey information suggests the cheapest-paying out sectors for doctors to do the job in are general public health and preventive drugs. Physicians who choose to perform with the most vulnerable populations, specially individuals receiving Medicaid and Medicare, receive much less reimbursement for their products and services, as prices for these insurance plan courses frequently fall well beneath people of business insurance.

In addition to inequitable fork out, primary care doctors also work extended hours and see much far too several individuals (close to 20 a working day), with an common take a look at length of 18 minutes. This does not enable enough time to establish associations with individuals and deal with their complicated demands – which ever more contain chronic sickness administration alongside with psychiatric and social issues – a lot significantly less comprehensive their administrative responsibilities. The COVID-19 pandemic magnified this trouble.

Because of these calls for, key treatment medical professionals generally truly feel they can not deliver their best treatment to sufferers. One latest analyze discovered that principal care physicians who ended up not section of staff-based treatment would require a 26.7-hour shift to observe proposed suggestions for treatment.

Obtaining far more health professionals to enter – or continue to be – in major care is a complicated challenge, but a excellent start off would be investing extra in the general public wellbeing care method and its main care medical professionals. Does this mean supplying bigger compensation to develop more parity with other sought-immediately after clinical specialties? Certainly. 1 avenue for executing so would be to emphasize the great importance of major care and protect it in just the Medicare Physician Rate Schedule, which in turn could bolster rate schedules used for Medicaid. Yet another avenue to make the field far more interesting would be to grow loan forgiveness for medical professionals who apply major treatment.

But raising income possibilities on your own will not be adequate to incentivize a sustainable workforce shift. We also will need to devote in principal care procedures to assure superior staffing and undertaking-sharing, so that every person can observe to the best extent of their license and capabilities. Choosing nurse practitioners, health practitioner assistants and medical assistants can present aid with client treatment and assistance simplicity clerical burdens stemming from charting, coding and insurance policies-related concerns.

Taken with each other, these steps can enable extra doctors to see most important treatment as a location in which they can focus on what drew them to drugs in the to start with location: helping clients.