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New rules regarding Medicaid work requirements
The Trump administration yesterday released a long-awaited document setting out rules for new Medicaid work requirements. The policy, created as part of President Trump’s tax bill last summer, requires adults enrolled in the program’s expansion and low-income people who also don’t enroll in Medicare to spend at least 80 hours a month in work or community service, or at least half their time in education.
There are various exemptions, including for people who are “medically frail,” but questions remain about what medical conditions put people in that category. States will rush to understand all the rules by the time they go into effect in early 2027. For more information, read this article from STAT’s John Wilkerson and Tara Banau.
one fifth
That’s the number of 12- to 21-year-olds who reported going to an AI chatbot for mental health advice, according to a RAND study of more than 1,000 youth published yesterday in JAMA Pediatrics. The survey, conducted in November 2025, showed an increase from the 13% of people who reported using AI in a similar RAND study earlier this year.
Among those who used AI, almost 43% used it monthly, and about 92% rated the advice at least somewhat helpful. Chatbots such as Gemini and ChatGPT are becoming more common, but a parallel increase is a growing concern about how these tools address mental health issues.
Rapid funding for experimental Ebola vaccines
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations announced yesterday that it will provide approximately $62 million in funding to three organizations to support the production and testing of a vaccine for the rare Bundibugyo Ebola virus. Most of the funding will go to Moderna (about $50 million). But even with an infusion of cash, it will likely be months before clinical trials for any given vaccine begin, writes STAT’s Helen Branswell.
Read Helen’s story about the challenges ahead and why one CEPI executive says the world is actually better prepared to respond to this epidemic than previous, larger ones.
Legal battle threatens DTC telemedicine erupts
In more than 30 states, it is illegal for businesses to practice medicine. This may come as a surprise, as telemedicine companies are advertising on subway platforms and downloading an app can be the first step for patients to receive a prescription. The way many telemedicine companies get around these laws is by working with “friendly” physician-owned medical groups that theoretically manage their care. Telemedicine companies themselves are legally just managed service organizations.
But as STAT’s Katie Palmer explains in the latest episode of The Virtual Rx Boom, the relationship between these two groups has defined the rapid growth of the virtual-only telemedicine business. Some experts argue that the physician group is more “captive” than “friendly.” Over the past two years, several states have moved to strengthen corporate practices in health care law based on these concerns.
Read more from Katie about how these agreements currently work, which states are looking to make changes, and how telehealth lobbying groups continue to emerge to challenge proposed legislation.
Testing a state’s medical meals program
The idea of food as medicine has received a lot of attention recently, especially with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. leading the federal health initiative. We’re still waiting on his proposed MAHA box initiative to send healthy groceries to SNAP participants. Meanwhile, states such as Massachusetts are piloting programs that send medically tailored meals to Medicaid recipients with medical conditions that affect their diet, such as diabetes, heart failure or chronic kidney disease. A study published today in Nature Medicine about the first few years of the program found that participation reduced hospitalizations by 31%, emergency department visits by 20%, and total medical costs by $3,433.
Researchers matched data from more than 1,800 participants with data from about 1,400 similarly eligible individuals. Everyone in the program received meals for at least three months, with an average of six months. The program cost approximately $3,500 per person, a cost that was nearly offset by reduced health care costs.
Thirteen states have taken steps to implement food-as-medicine programs, including meal programs. The results support the need to test these interventions in more settings, the authors wrote.
Why doesn’t the FDA ban this “punitive” “torture”?
The use of electroshock devices to manage dangerous behavior in people with intellectual disabilities and autism has been called “punishment” by the American Academy of Pediatrics and a form of “torture” by United Nations officials. The FDA has tried to ban this practice before, but it has never stalled.
In its latest attempt, the agency gave itself a deadline of the end of May two years ago. It’s June, but there is no particular movement. “We’ve come pretty close a number of times,” Robin Linscott, the nonprofit’s director, told STAT’s O. Rose Broderick. If the FDA didn’t ban this practice, “it would feel like salt in the wound.” Read the latest from Rose, revisit her 2024 story, and recap the entire story of Sisyphus.
what we are reading
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The painful truth about the long-lasting coronavirus, Wired
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It’s incomprehensible. I get irritated. terrible. What it’s like to be sued over medical debt, KFF Health News
- World’s largest cancer research conference mourns as data temporarily takes a backseat, STAT
- Jeffrey Epstein’s sperm may have survived, New York Times
- No-Surprises Act arbitration rules could exacerbate flood of provider disputes, STAT
