Category: NPR

State Medicaid programs already get much more money from the federal government than Puerto Rico Medicaid gets — and the storm-ravaged U.S. territory’s safety net for the poor is barely hanging on.

Medicare pays more than $16 billion a year for hospice services. But a new report from the Department of Health and Human Services says hospice patients don’t always get the care they’re promised.

After an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity and NPR into conflicts of interest in Medicaid decisions about drugs, Arizona’s governor added new transparency rules.

Synthetic marijuana, known as K2, overdoses are challenging the city’s first responders and law enforcement. “Overdoses are happening everywhere,” says one delivery driver.

The Trump administration says its plan to overhaul the way Medicare pays doctors will save physicians time and paperwork. But critics worry the changes will hurt patients’ care and doctors’ income.

A young grad student worked out a way to pay for life-changing gender-confirmation surgery. But she still had to fight to resolve a billing discrepancy that ran into the tens of thousands of dollars.

Many people forced into labor or the sex trade seek medical help at some point, and health care workers are being trained to identify them and to offer assistance.

When you go to the doctor in pain, you’ll probably be asked to rate your discomfort on a scale of 0 to 10. But doctors say there may be a better way to assess pain.

It’s been four years since the attack on a flight in Ukraine killed several AIDS prevention advocates. Ahead of a conference, one advocate says they would have wanted to keep attention on the fight.

There’s a growing movement of MDs working to include recognition of people with disabilities in their profession — and how those disabilities might actually make them better doctors.