Author

Brett Kelman

Brett Kelman

Brett Kelman joined KFF Health News after 15 years of reporting at three newspapers in the USA Today Network. Most recently he covered health care, the opioid crisis, and the coronavirus pandemic for The Tennessean in Nashville. At the Pacific Daily News in Guam, his reporting was directly responsible for the arrest of three police officers who aided in a human trafficking conspiracy. In California, he contributed to “The Wall: Unknown Stories, Unintended Consequences,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper series examining the border wall proposed by former President Donald Trump. He is a graduate of the University of Florida.

Six years into an Appalachia hospital monopoly, patients are fearful and furious
By: - December 9, 2024

KINGSPORT, Tenn. — Jerry Qualls had a heart attack in 2022 and was rushed by ambulance to Holston Valley Medical Center, where he was hospitalized for a week and kept alive by a ventilator and blood pump, according to his medical records. His wife, Katherine Qualls, said his doctors offered little hope. In an interview […]

Tennessee gives this hospital monopoly an A grade — even when it reports failure
By: - May 28, 2024

A Tennessee agency that is supposed to hold accountable and grade the nation’s largest state-sanctioned hospital monopoly awards full credit on dozens of quality-of-care measurements as long as it reports any value — regardless of how its hospitals actually perform. Ballad Health, a 20-hospital system in northeast Tennessee and southwest Virginia, has received A grades […]

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