Category: NPR

People in Fort Scott, Kansas, depended on their local hospital for more than a century. In December, the hospital closed Fort Scott residents now are trying to cope with life without it.

A new lawsuit brought by 44 states and Puerto Rico alleges an “industry-wide” conspiracy by generic drug manufacturers to collude on prices and divide up the market.

Across the country, there are about 6,500 undocumented immigrants with kidney failure, according to the National Institutes of Health. What kind of care they get depends on where they live.

Caps on shift lengths for medical residents were implemented to improve patient safety. Given the effects of sleep deprivation on emotional capacity and residents’ well-being, why risk longer hours?

More than 600 people will take part in study to test a promising treatment for Huntington’s disease, a fatal inherited condition. The experimental drug interferes with defective genetic machinery.

A bipartisan group of senators has been working on a plan to protect patients from unexpected medical bills. Disagreements within the health care industry could thwart those efforts.

A new rule expands protection for health care workers who refuse to provide certain care on moral grounds. The rule cites a sudden rise in religious discrimination complaints. What’s fueling the rise?

The government wants consumers to have sticker shock about drug prices. A new rule requires list prices be displayed in TV ads. Patients advocates are not sure it will do much to lower prices.

About once a year for the last decade, a health care provider would file a complaint of conscience through Health and Human Services. Last year, complaints skyrocketed to 343.

A public hospital in Los Angeles gets over 1,000 unidentified patients a year. Most are quickly ID’d, but some require considerable gumshoe work — a task often complicated by medical privacy laws.