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This installment of InvestigateTV and Թϲ’ “Costly Care” series digs into patients' getting charged hospital prices for doctor’s office care. For five years, a patient got the same injection from the same office. Then it changed how it billed and she owed more than $1,100 for one treatment.
Dairy workers in Texas show signs of prior, uncounted bird flu infections in a new study. Without labor protection and better health care, cases are bound to quietly rise as the outbreak among livestock blazes in the United States.
Until this spring, Michigan was the only state that had a broad criminal ban on surrogacy. Many families say that left them in limbo: forcing them to leave the state to have children, finding strangers on Facebook who would carry their child, or going through the legal hassle of having to adopt their biological children.
So far, all 10 cases reported nationally this year at dairy and poultry farms have been mild, consisting of respiratory symptoms and eye irritation. Scientists have warned that the virus could mutate to spread from person to person, like the seasonal flu, and spark a pandemic.
Lead in drinking water is a known danger. But how many of the country’s estimated 9 million lead service lines need to be replaced — and how quickly — is subject to debate. The clock is ticking on two competing plans as the election looms.
Gun violence is the No. 1 cause of death for children and teens in America. Vivek Murthy says the toll extends beyond deaths, as survivors deal with “a lifetime of physical and mental health impacts” and those who witness shootings become traumatized.
Clinicians working for Ascension hospitals in multiple states described harrowing lapses, including delayed or lost lab results, medication errors, and an absence of routine safety checks to prevent potentially fatal mistakes.
Michigan and Ohio serve as cautionary tales for states whose voters will decide abortion ballot initiatives this year: Even if the measures pass, it would take time to unwind conflicting laws.
New York and Michigan recently passed laws allowing local jurisdictions to lower speed limits, and Los Angeles voters backed safer road designs, but enforcement often meets political resistance. The number of pedestrians killed or injured on the road remains high.
The spread of an avian flu virus in cattle has again brought public health attention to the potential for a global pandemic. Fighting it would depend, for now, on 1940s technology that makes vaccines from hens’ eggs.
A man from Michigan was evacuated from a cruise ship after having seizures. First, he drained his bank account to pay his medical bills.
Nurses are telling lawmakers that there are not enough of them working in hospitals and that it risks patients’ lives. California and Oregon legally limit the number of patients under a nurse’s care. Other states trying to do the same were blocked by the hospital industry. Now patients’ relatives are joining the fight.
More doctors are integrating oral health care into their practices, filling a need in America’s dental deserts.
New Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley is promising to change how the agency reclaims billions of dollars it wrongly pays to beneficiaries, saying the existing process is “cruel-hearted and mindless.”
The expansion of Catholic hospitals nationwide leaves patients at the mercy of the church’s religious directives, which are often at odds with accepted medical standards.
Doctors, patients, and hospitals have railed for years about the prior authorization processes that health insurers use to decide whether they’ll pay for patients’ drugs or medical procedures. The Biden administration announced a crackdown in January, but some state lawmakers are looking to go further.
New York City is the latest jurisdiction to buy and forgive a backlog of unpaid medical bills for its residents. Local governments across the country, including in the Chicago area, are doing the same to reduce debt burdens for lower-income residents.
California’s governor vetoed a bill extending insurance coverage for kids with hearing loss, but most states now require it.
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