Katheryn Houghton

The pandemic has intensified a long-running health care worker shortage that has hit especially hard in large, rural states like Montana, which have few candidates to replace workers who depart.

Residents have received assurances that the level of particulate matter in their neighborhood isn’t hazardous, but some doubt those standards protect human health.

A year after a new Montana law stripped local health boards of their rulemaking authority, confusion and power struggles are creating a patchwork oversight system that may change how public health is administered long after the pandemic is over.

Larger departments are trying to attract paramedics by boosting pay and offering hefty signing bonuses. But small teams in underserved counties across the U.S. don’t have the budgets to compete.

Montana State Hospital’s forensic facility, which evaluates and treats patients in the criminal justice system, has always had a waitlist, court records show, but the pandemic has lengthened it.

About half of Montana schools that had tested their water by mid-February under a new state rule had high levels of lead, according to state data.

For the first time, Little Shell members will have guaranteed access to health services — and see their culture reflected in the offerings. The brick-and-mortar hub is a powerful symbol for a tribe that lacks a reservation.

Montana’s richest nonprofit hospitals receive millions of dollars in tax exemptions each year to operate as charities, but some fall short of other medical facilities in what they give back to their communities to get those breaks.

Montana is one testing ground for whether more transparency leads to lower drug prices with a new law that places those businesses under state oversight.

Missoula began sending a special crew on emergency mental health calls in November, and it is now one of six mobile crisis response programs in Montana.