Shots

Jennifer Brooks, who had repeatedly visited the emergency room at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, was sued by Southeastern Emergency Physicians for $8,500 in unpaid medical bills. Andrea Morales/MLK50 hide caption

Enrollment help was plentiful for insurance sign-ups in the early years of the Affordable Care Act, such as at this clinic in Bear, Del., in 2014. Though the Trump administration has since slashed the outreach budget, about 930,000 people have signed up for ACA health plans so far this year. Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption

"The profession we love has been taken over," psychiatrist and novelist Samuel Shem tells NPR, "with us sitting there in front of screens all day, doing data entry in a computer factory." Catie Dull/NPR hide caption

In 2015, the New York legislature in Albany passed a law to end the practice of surprise medical billing. Research suggests overall health care costs have risen as a result. Walter Bibikow/Getty Images hide caption

Vaping devices now come in many shapes and sizes; these were confiscated from students by a high school principal in Massachusetts in 2018. Steven Senne/AP hide caption

In The Price We Pay, published this fall, author Marty Makary shows how rising costs are eroding trust in medicine. Catie Dull/NPR hide caption

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, along with 1,500 self-funded health plans, sued Sutter Health for antitrust violations. The closely watched case, which many expected to set precedents nationwide, ended in a settlement Wednesday. Above, Sutter Medical Center in Sacramento, Calif. Rich Pedroncelli/AP hide caption

While prescriptions for durable medical equipment, such as orthotic braces or wheelchairs, have long been a staple of Medicare fraud schemes, some alleged scammers are now using telemedicine and unscrupulous health providers to prescribe unneeded equipment to distant patients. Joelle Sedlmeyer/Getty Images hide caption

Medicare Advantage health plans, mostly run by private insurance companies, have enrolled more than 22 million seniors and people with disabilities — more than 1 in 3 people who are on some sort of Medicare plan. Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP hide caption

Carrie Barrett, a former defendant in a suit brought by Methodist Hospital, testifies during service at Apostolic Fellowship Church in Memphis, Tenn., on Sept. 15. Her debt to the hospital was cleared following an MLK50 and ProPublica investigation into the debt collection practices. Andrea Morales for MLK50 hide caption

Some insurers using this new payment model offer a single fee to one OB-GYN or medical practice, which then uses part of that money to cover the hospital care involved in labor and delivery. Other insurers opt to cut a separate contract with the hospital. Adene Sanchez/Getty Images hide caption