Bureaucracy might sound harmless. Until it affects clinical care, that is. A patient may have a diagnosis, a doctor willing to treat them, and an appropriate treatment available. Yet, they could still be unable to receive it because something is stuck somewhere, be it an authorization, referral, record, insurance approval, or form. A March 2026 JAMA article argues that administrative delays, incomplete handoffs, insurance issues and scheduling barriers are not simply customer-service problems...

Family caregivers are the enormous, largely invisible healthcare workforce that nobody talks about. According to the 2025 AARP/National Alliance for Caregiving report, about 63 million Americans (nearly 1 in 4 adults) are family caregivers, with about 59 million of those providing care to adults. In 2024, adult family caregivers provided an estimated 49.5 billion hours of care, which would be worth approximately $1.01 trillion in paid labor. Adult caregivers now spend an average of around 27...