In the alleged scheme, Medicare beneficiaries were offered, at no cost to them, genetic testing to estimate their cancer risk. Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images hide caption
Health Inc. : Shots - Health News As spending on care rises, the business of health keeps getting more important. We feature news on and analysis of drugmakers, health insurers, hospitals, doctors and others in the business of providing health care.
Shots
Health News From NPRHealth Inc.
Friday
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
Wednesday
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
Friday
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
Thursday
A pharmacist collects packets of boxed medication from the shelves of a pharmacy in London, U.K. A proposal announced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Thursday would allow the government to directly negotiate the price of 250 U.S. drugs, using what the drugs cost in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom as a baseline. Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption
Saturday
Visitors and park rangers at historic Fort Scott check out a medevac helicopter operated by Midwest AeroCare during the Kansas town's Good Ol' Days festival. Sarah Jane Tribble/Kaiser Health News hide caption
Air Ambulances Woo Rural Consumers With Memberships That May Leave Them Hanging
Monday
Unlike Planned Parenthood which pulled out of Title X family planning funding, many clinics still take the funding and must comply with new rules on discussing abortion. Doctors worry it will affect their relationships with patients. SDI Productions/Getty Images hide caption
Friday
UK Biobank has granted 10,000 qualified scientists access to its large database of genetic sequences and other medical data, but other organizations with databases have been far more restrictive in giving access. KTSDESIGN/Getty Images/Science Photo Library hide caption
Thursday
Groupon and other deal sites are the latest marketing tactic in medicine, offering bargain prices for services such as CT scans. Colin Cuthbert/Science Photo Libra/Getty Images hide caption
Wednesday
Bags of heroin, some laced with fentanyl, picked up in a 2016 New York City drug bust. "Basically, [fentanyl] is so cheap to produce and it's so powerful, that drug dealers began realizing it was a way to increase their profits," Fentanyl, Inc. author Ben Westhoff says. But miscalculations of the amount used can be deadly. Drew Angerer/Getty Images hide caption
Fentanyl As A Dark Web Profit Center, From Chinese Labs To U.S. Streets
Saturday
UK Biobank, based in Manchester, England, is the largest blood-based research project in the world. The research project will involve at least 500,000 people across the U.K., and follow their health for next 30 years or more, providing a resource for scientists battling diseases. Christopher Furlong/Getty Images hide caption
Wednesday
Americans have the right to access their medical records, but actually doing so is often complicated, slow and costly. Sean Justice/Getty Images hide caption
Monday
State's attorney Brad Beckworth lays out one of his closing arguments in Oklahoma's case against drugmaker Johnson & Johnson at the Cleveland County Courthouse in Norman, Okla. in July. The judge in the case ruled Monday that J&J must pay $572 million to the state. Chris Landsberger/AP hide caption
Oklahoma Wanted $17 Billion To Fight Its Opioid Crisis: What's The Real Cost?
Friday
In rugged, rural areas, patients often have little choice about how they'll get to the hospital in an emergency. "The presence of private equity in the air ambulance industry indicates that investors see profit opportunities," a 2017 report from the federal Government Accountability Office notes. pidjoe/Getty Images hide caption
Thursday
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that most new heroin addicts first became hooked on prescription painkillers, such as oxycodone, before graduating to heroin, which is cheaper. John Moore/Getty Images hide caption