Doctors Make Big Money Testing Urine For Drugs, Then Ignore Abnormal Results
Medicare and insurers struggle to oversee a booming business in testing urine samples. In some cases, pain doctors’ lack of follow-through can turn fatal.
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Medicare and insurers struggle to oversee a booming business in testing urine samples. In some cases, pain doctors’ lack of follow-through can turn fatal.
Drugmakers, hospitals and lawmakers are taking sides in a showdown over a discount program that covers drug purchases at some hospitals.
In this episode of “What the Health?” Julie Rovner of Kaiser Health News, Joanne Kenen of Politico, Alice Ollstein of Talking Points Memo and Sarah Jane Tribble of Kaiser Health News discuss some of the under-covered health stories of the past several weeks, including drug price issues, the opioid epidemic and women’s reproductive health.
Southern Illinois University’s William Halford conducted unregulated human herpes experiments in hotels near university campus, emails show.
Following minor surgery, KHN’s consumer columnist sees how easily doctors offer pain pills, fueling epidemic of opioid addiction.
In an effort to reduce drug costs and increase efficiency, Massachusetts is seeking federal approval to implement a new approach to how the state’s Medicaid program covers prescription medications.
The federal agents warned store owners that importing drugs from foreign countries is illegal and that those helping “administer” such medicines could face penalties.
Medicare is examining how rebates and discounts could be shared in some way with Part D beneficiaries to reduce their out-of-pocket costs.
Medicare officials have been discussing a rule change that would give beneficiaries a share of the secretive fees and discounts that are negotiated for prescription drugs.
Most states have laws that require that cancer patients who get their treatment orally rather than by infusion in a doctor’s office not pay more out-of-pocket. A new study finds that the impact of those laws is mixed.
Millions of dollars in campaign spending and a media blitz of advertisements muddy public understanding of Issue 2, the Drug Price Relief Act.
With the nation's opioid crisis, urine testing has become a booming business and is especially lucrative for doctors who operate their own labs, a Kaiser Health News investigation finds. And dozens of practitioners have earned "the lion’s share" of their Medicare income exclusively from urine drug screens.
UnitedHealth, a health industry goliath, has its hand in doctors’ offices, surgery centers, technology services and prescription drugs. It is the industry model, and CVS and Aetna, says one expert, are ‘wannabes.’
House Republicans want to repeal federal tax credits that have helped spur a boom in orphan drugs for rare diseases.
A flurry of federal and state probes have targeted insulin manufacturers and pharmacy benefit managers — middlemen in the prescription drug-pricing pipeline. Here, we connect the legal dots.
Over the past two years, a powerful federal prosecutor and several state attorneys general have launched investigations related to diabetes drugs.
Patients flocked to researcher who ignored usual patient protections, as university claimed ignorance.
The costs of using a new class of cancer treatments include far more than the drug’s sticker price.
Gov. Jerry Brown signed the measure, which takes effect next year and will require drug companies to publicly justify big price increases.
"If it gets signed by this governor, it's going to send shock waves throughout the country,” one legislator says. Pharma has spent $16.8 million lobbying against this bill and other drug laws in California.
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