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By ALISON KUZNITZ

State officials are preparing for the rollout of expanded maternal health care services in 2025, stemming from a new law and recommendations they issued last year.Public health officials said the bevy of reforms were fueled by the controversial...

By Staff Report

SPRINGFIELD — As it continues to recover from more than $300 million in operating losses over the past few years, Baystate Health this week took a first step in what it calls “transformational change” by eliminating 134 leadership positions.That...

By NAOMI SCULLY-BRISTOL

NORTHAMPTON — Death is rarely planned, but Dan Winter knew he wanted to not only plan his death, but also share the story of it.Winter, 62, had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s, and after watching his father die slowly from the same illness...

By ZICHANG LIU

BOSTON — Not long after state Sen. Jo Comerford took office in 2019, a constituent reached out for help after they received a bill from MassHealth in the wake of a family member’s death.The state was seeking to recover expenses associated with caring...

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

WILLIAMSBURG — Over the period of a single year, Osa and Christopher Flory found themselves cycling through three different primary care physicians.After their longtime doctor retired, the Williamsburg couple found another Cooley Dickinson Hospital...

By ALEXA LEWIS

NORTHAMPTON — Cooley Dickinson Hospital and Highland Valley Elder Services will expand the state’s Hospital to Home Partnership Program thanks to a nearly $200,000 grant announced by the governor’s office last month. The program will involve providing...

By ALISON KUZNITZ

BOSTON — The House chair of the Elder Affairs Committee lambasted the Senate’s monthslong delay in taking up a long-term care reform bill this week, but his Senate co-chair later expressed optimism about the legislation reaching Gov. Maura Healey’s...

By XINYI YANG

BOSTON — Massachusetts teaching hospitals and medical institutions must obtain written informed consent before any sensitive and intimate examination, including breast, rectal, prostate, and pelvic exams, as a result of a federal decision effective...

By CHRIS LARABEE

SOUTH DEERFIELD — After a successful move to Yankee Candle last year, the 17th annual Wheeling for Healing event is back on May 19, as the fundraiser seeks to continue raising tens of thousands of dollars for cancer patients receiving treatment within...

By DOUG SELWYN

A recent essay by Blythe Thomas, initiative director at 1000 Days, an organization that fights “to make health and well-being during the first 1,000 days (between pregnancy and a child’s 2nd birthday) a policy and funding priority,” begins by asking...

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering loosening isolation requirements for people who test positive for COVID-19, meaning they would no longer have to stay at home for at least five days when infected with the virus.Under the...

By DOMENIC POLI

GREENFIELD — Some two dozen aspiring nurses spent Monday morning rubbing elbows with four of the region’s top politicians, where they were able to ask what they could do to drum up support for single-payer health care to how to better protect medical...

Staff Report

Less than a month after it began enforcing a longstanding policy restricting the use of anesthesia during colonoscopies and other procedures, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts is pausing that action after physicians statewide lobbied the insurer...

Editor’s note: Since this story was published, Blue Cross Blue Shield has paused enforcement of a policy that restricts the use of anesthesia during colonoscopies and other procedures.An updated policy from Blue Cross Blue Shield Massachusetts...

By DOMENIC POLI

The Democrat representing the 2nd Congressional District of Massachusetts has teamed up with a Republican colleague from Florida to sponsor a bill aimed at making it easier for Americans to get medically necessary foods.Jim McGovern and John...

By SCOTT MERZBACH

NORTHAMPTON — Even with less severe cases of COVID-19 than the past two years and a marked decrease since last fall in RSV, officially known as respiratory syncytial virus, a surge in flu cases is keeping Cooley Dickinson Hospital’s emergency...

By SAM DRYSDALE

BOSTON — The state’s drug overdose crisis is persisting at record high levels, exacerbated by a “poisoned drug supply” that isn’t just affecting those who use opioids anymore.There were 2,323 confirmed and estimated fatal opioid-related overdoses...

 By Emilee Klein

Before the pandemic, Dr. David Alpern, like many health care workers at the time, didn’t think twice about going to work with a runny nose or cough.But since symptoms of COVID-19 are indistinguishable from the common cold, the retired Cooley Dickinson...

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

NORTHAMPTON — Malfunctioning equipment responsible for sterilizing medical instruments and devices forced Cooley Dickinson Hospital to temporarily suspend both elective and emergency surgical operations on Nov. 6, though some of those procedures...

By CHRIS LISINSKI

BOSTON — Patients would pay no more than $25 for certain name-brand medications to treat some chronic illnesses and face no costs whatsoever for similar generic options under the latest prescription drug legislation set to emerge in the Senate.Senate...

By BELLA LEVAVI

GREENFIELD — Community members and health care providers gathered Wednesday night to celebrate the launch of Baystate Health’s $70 million campaign, marking the largest fundraising goal in the hospital system’s history.“Baystate Health has been...