health care

If your insurer waived the fee to see your primary care doctor, would you go more often?

Obamacare Insurers Sweeten Plans With Free Doctor Visits

10:39am December 31, 2015

by Phil Galewitz

Some insurers are betting that lowering the barrier to seeing a doctor will encourage people to get needed care sooner. If it works, the health plans could save more than they spend on the benefit.

Doctors Look To Prevent Abuse In Midst Of Opioid Epidemic

4:30pm December 30, 2015

The U.S. is in the grips of a prescription drug epidemic, fueled in part by an explosion in opioid prescriptions over the past several decades. Roughly half of those prescriptions are written by primary care doctors. NPR's Robert Siegel talks with Dr. Wanda Filer, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, about her experience prescribing opioids and what doctors can do to prevent abuse.

VA addiction therapist Brandon Coleman, now on administrative leave, testified about widespread problems with privacy breaches before the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs in September.

Privacy Violations Rising At Veterans Affairs Medical Facilities

9:37am December 30, 2015

Deceased veterans' documents were sent to the wrong widows. VA workers snooped on patients who had committed suicide. And whistleblowers contend the VA violated their medical privacy.

2015 Was Another Rough And Tumble Year For Obamacare

7:33am December 30, 2015

by Scott Horsley

The Affordable Care Act survived another challenge before the U.S. Supreme Court this year. But the still-fragile marketplace is showing the strain of rising health care costs.

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Sue McConnell is one of more than 130 transgender veterans receiving treatment at the Tucson Veterans Affairs hospital.

New VA Clinic Opens For Transgender Vets

8:17pm December 29, 2015

by Jimmy Jenkins

The Tucson Veterans Affairs hospital is expanding treatment to the needs of trans veterans, one of the first such facilities in the U.S. to do so. The clinic's services include hormone treatment.

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Medical workers surround 34-day-old Noubia, the last known patient to contract Ebola in Guinea, as she was released from a Doctors Without Borders treatment center in Conakry on Nov. 28.

A Cause For Cautious Celebration: Guinea Is Ebola-Free

5:38pm December 29, 2015

by Maanvi Singh

After two years and over 2,500 deaths, the country's epidemic has officially ended, the World Health Organization says. Health groups will be watching to ensure the virus doesn't re-emerge.

A CVS store on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan, N.Y.

Repeat Violators Of Health Privacy Laws Often Go Unpunished

3:35pm December 29, 2015

Regulators have logged dozens, even hundreds of complaints against some health providers for violating federal patient privacy law. Warnings are doled out privately, and sanctions are rarely imposed.

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Health & Safety

How Sound Reveals The Invisible Within Us

3:31pm December 29, 2015

Microscopes illuminate the tiny. But sound? Scientists didn't really see it as all that important, until an amazing invention came along that opened new worlds: the stethoscope.

Delma and Antonio Salazar have been caring for Delma's mother, Agnes Williams (middle), who has severe memory problems, for the past seven years.

Alzheimer's Disease Underdiagnosed In Indian Country

7:48pm December 28, 2015

by Laurel Morales

A Native American family that sees Alzheimer's disease as a natural part of life may be less likely to reach for resources that could help, say Arizona mental health workers. They hope to change that.

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Training The Immune System To Fight Cancer Has 19th-Century Roots

7:22pm December 28, 2015

by Rebecca Davis

When Jimmy Carter said his advanced melanoma was gone, he credited immunotherapy, treatments that harness the immune system to fight cancer cells. This idea dates back to a 19th-century doctor.

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