More counties are turning to private corporations to run medical care in jails. The companies have deadly track records.
Medicare Advantage plans are spreading across upstate New York, despite a reputation for denying care. In Cortland County, retirees kept it at bay.
In rural school districts where doctors are hard to find, in-school telehealth services seemed like a good solution. Then New York state stopped funding them.
Hochul’s proposed Medicaid cuts include $125 million from Health Homes, a program that connects the neediest New Yorkers with medical care, food assistance, and more.
Stark disparities in access to life-saving medication for opioid addiction persist between facilities — and racial groups.
New York legislators have a plan to claim billions in federal funding for health care, driving a fight between industry groups.
The former budget director’s role may break a law meant to keep ex-state employees from monetizing insider knowledge.
While the nonprofit Greater New York Hospital Association lobbied, a lucrative for-profit arm may have run up costs for hospitals.
In the New York City teachers union, anger over a plan to privatize retiree health care could send a longshot campaign over the edge.
Hochul’s budget would level off funding for addiction treatment — and use opioid settlement funds to fill the gaps.
The average New Yorker has to travel nearly 10 miles to access methadone, a New York Focus analysis found. Upstate, they have to go even further.
The governor has neglected to announce a public emergency over the increasingly deadly opioid epidemic. Observers are perplexed.
Police training materials link the discredited “excited delirium syndrome” to synthetic marijuana use.
The prison department doesn’t track overdose deaths in its custody. A New York Focus analysis found that the overdose death rate has tripled.
Recent legislation has sought to rein in medical debt collection. But the bills don’t stop lawsuits in the first place — and some patients decline care out of financial concern.
The Sheriffs’ Association lobbied against a bill to provide medication for opioid addiction in jails. Since it passed, they’ve failed to evaluate thousands of people for treatment.
The Adams administration said the city would replace discontinued Rikers courses. “I can say for certain that that’s not true,” one worker told New York Focus.
Men locked up in the Broome County jail describe an opioid treatment program so shoddy, they risk withdrawal, relapse, and overdose.
The addiction epidemic is getting worse in the Capital Region. Through local zoning laws, residents fight to keep the state’s solutions out of their backyards.
Mixed evidence was piling up about a signature New York drug policy experiment. Then the state stopped releasing the data.