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Brett Kelman of KFF Health News

Ballad Health’s hospital monopoly underperformed. Then Tennessee lowered the bar.

Brett Kelman of KFF Health News

May 31, 2025

Ballad Health, a state-sanctioned hospital monopoly, can now be deemed a benefit to the public with performance that would earn a “D” on most grading scales, state documents show.

Filed Under: Health Care, WPLN News Tagged With: Ballad Health, hospital industry, monopoly, Ralph Alvarado, rural hospitals, Tennessee Department of Health

ERs staffed by private equity firms aim to cut costs by hiring fewer doctors

Brett Kelman of KFF Health NewsandBlake Farmer

February 12, 2023

Listen

Pregnant and scared, Natasha Valle went to Clarksville’s Tennova Healthcare hospital in January 2021 because she was bleeding. She didn’t know much about miscarriage, but this seemed like one.

Filed Under: Health Care, WPLN News Tagged With: American Physician Partners, emergency departments, private equity

They lost TennCare when paperwork was sent to a pasture, signaling the mess to come

Brett Kelman of KFF Health News

August 2, 2022

Three years ago, Mason Lester, a rambunctious toddler, tumbled off his family’s porch and broke his wrist. His mother, nine months pregnant, rushed him to a nearby hospital, where she made a confounding discovery: Their health insurance had vanished.

Filed Under: Health Care, WPLN News Tagged With: Medicaid, TennCare

This rural Tennessee county was a vaccine success story. Not anymore.

Brett Kelman of KFF Health News

May 19, 2022

At a glance, it seemed like a Southern pandemic success story in a most unlikely place. A small county northeast of Chattanooga, along the twisting banks of Chickamauga Lake, for much of the past year has reported the highest covid-19 vaccination rate in Tennessee and one of the highest in the South. Meigs County, which […]

Filed Under: Health Care, WPLN News Tagged With: COVID-19, vaccine

No prison time for RaDonda Vaught, former Vanderbilt nurse convicted of fatal drug error

Brett Kelman of KFF Health NewsandBlake Farmer

May 13, 2022

RaDonda Vaught protest

RaDonda Vaught, a former nurse at Vanderbilt University Medical Center convicted of two felonies for a fatal drug error and whose trial became a rallying cry for nurses fearful of the criminalization of medical mistakes, will not be required to spend any time in prison.

Filed Under: Criminal Justice, Health Care, WPLN News Tagged With: medical error, nurses, RaDonda Vaught, Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Why nurses are raging and quitting after the RaDonda Vaught verdict

Brett Kelman of KFF Health News

April 5, 2022

Vaught verdict reaction

Emma Moore felt cornered. At a community health clinic in Portland, Oregon, the 29-year-old nurse practitioner said she felt overwhelmed and undertrained. Coronavirus patients flooded the clinic for two years, and Moore struggled to keep up.

Filed Under: Criminal Justice, Health Care, WPLN News Tagged With: RaDonda Vaught, Vanderbilt University Medical Center

At a Tennessee crossroads, two pharmacies, a monkey and millions of pills

Brett Kelman of KFF Health News

March 29, 2022

Dale Hollow Pharmacy

Federal prosecutors say a Celina pharmacy courted opioid seekers by filling dangerous prescriptions and offering cash handouts to keep customers coming back, including its own currency called “monkey bucks.”

Filed Under: Criminal Justice, Health Care, WPLN News Tagged With: Celina, Clay County, opioids, pharmacy

In nurse’s trial, investigator says Vanderbilt bears ‘heavy’ responsibility for patient death

Brett Kelman of KFF Health News

March 24, 2022

A lead investigator in the criminal case against former Tennessee nurse RaDonda Vaught testified Wednesday that state investigators found Vanderbilt University Medical Center had a “heavy burden of responsibility” for a grievous drug error that killed a patient in 2017, but pursued penalties and criminal charges only against the nurse and not the hospital itself.

Filed Under: Criminal Justice, Health Care, WPLN News Tagged With: nurses, RaDonda Vaught, Vanderbilt University Medical Center

As a former Vanderbilt nurse faces prison for a deadly error, her colleagues worry: Could I be next?

Brett Kelman of KFF Health News

March 22, 2022

RaDonda Vaught

Four years ago, inside the most prestigious hospital in Tennessee, nurse RaDonda Vaught withdrew a vial from an electronic medication cabinet, administered the drug to a patient, and somehow overlooked signs of a terrible and deadly mistake.

Filed Under: Criminal Justice, Health Care, WPLN News Tagged With: nurses, Vanderbilt University Medical Center

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