Health Insurance and Medicare News & Features

Nearly 1 in 5 of those prescribed drugs asked their doctors for less expensive options. The rate was highest -- 40 percent -- among people without insurance, CNN reported.

The Food and Drug Administration has let medical device companies file reports of injuries and malfunctions outside a widely scrutinized public database, leaving doctors and medical sleuths in the dark.

Physicians remain at increased risk for burnout relative to workers in other fields, but for the first time, researchers saw improvement burnout symptoms in physicians nationally.

The Michigan Democrat chaired the House Energy and Commerce Committee and his impact on health care was immense.

Adults with a primary care doctor were more likely to receive colonoscopy or mammography. They also received more diagnostic and preventive tests, such as flu vaccination and blood pressure checks.

The suggested policy is unlikely to do harm, said one study author, but it is also unlikely to help much to control pharmaceutical prices.

Patients and doctors got a chance to share their nightmarish experiences with medical bills with President Donald Trump and other top White House officials.

The cost of a two-pack EpiPen injector has increased from around $100 in 2007 to between $300 and $600 today. The list price for Lantus brand insulin increased by 49 percent in 2014, even though the product has been on the market for more than a decade.

The problem, said one expert, is that by nature, ads tell consumers that the product is "good." Prescription drug ads mention side effects -- in a quick voiceover in a TV commercial, for instance -- but they do not quantify the benefits versus risks.

Medicare and Medicaid are fine, but the food safety component of the Food and Drug Administration and bio-threat surveillance done by the Department of Homeland Security are among the public health functions feeling the pinch.

One out of 5 people aged 50 to 64 decided to stay in their current job rather than change jobs or retire, just to keep their employer-provided health insurance.

While readmissions for heart failure, heart attack and pneumonia have declined, doctors and policy makers have expressed concerns that the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) may harm patient care and increase after-discharge death rates.

The ruling was made in a case that was launched by Republican governors and state attorneys general in 20 states and centered on whether people were still compelled to buy coverage even after Congress reduced the penalty for not having coverage to zero dollars.

Managing electronic health records is creating “technology-related stress” for physicians, and primary care doctors are most at risk, according to a new survey.

About 276,000 more children are among the uninsured, a new report finds. Though the uptick is statistically small, it is striking because uninsured rates usually decrease during periods of economic growth.

Pregnant women are among the groups of patients that may not get adequate care when they go to a hospital emergency room, in violation of a federal law created to protect them. .

WebMD and Georiga Health News used documents and data obtained through Open Records requests along with interview for its investigation on hospital EMTALA violations.

A federal law guarantees a certain level of medical care to anyone who comes to an emergency department, including a proper screening exam to determine if a patient has a medical emergency.

An investigation by WebMD and Georgia Health News finds that hospitals are breaking a law that requires them to provide emergency care to patients who need it, sometimes with deadly results.

Shereese Hickson’s doctor wanted her to try the infusion drug Ocrevus for her multiple sclerosis. Even though Hickson is trained as a medical billing coder, she was shocked to see two doses of the drug priced at $123,019, with her share set at $3,620.

Between 2011 and 2015, your risk of catching an infection while you were in the hospital dropped 16 percent, researchers say.

Residents of for-profit nursing homes have almost twice the risk of health problems linked to neglect compared with people who live in nonprofit homes, researchers say.

Despite being washed with industrial detergent in high, disinfecting temperatures, hospital sheets still were contaminated with the potentially life-threatening C. difficile bacteria, researchers found. And those sheets spread the bacteria to uncontaminated ones.

Privacy curtains in hospital rooms became more contaminated the longer they stayed in place, and by the 14th day, 88 percent tested positive for MRSA bacteria, a serious threat to patients, a new study says.

About 70 percent of all breaches occurred with health care providers, compared with only 13 percent of breaches taking place at health insurance companies, the study findings showed.