Half of all Americans now die in hospice care. Easy money and a lack of regulation transformed a crusade to provide death with dignity into an industry rife with fraud and exploitation. It might be counterintuitive to run an enterprise that is wholly dependent on...
While COVID-19 has killed 1 out of every 800 African Americans, a toll that overwhelms the imagination, even more stunning is the deadly efficiency with which it has targeted young Black men like Bates. One study using data through July found that Black people ages 35...
Sarah Johnson spent her entire life taking care of people — the six children she raised, mostly alone, and the hospital patients she served in her 25 years as a nurse. But at 86, she was the one who needed care. She was thin and frail and had COVID-19. Her son Rodney...
Terrified residents, families and staff of the Queens Adult Care Center have watched helplessly as COVID-19 runs rampant. They say management lied about the extent of its spread. Here’s how one daughter rescued her sick dad. Natasha Roland wanted to report what...
The box of prescription drugs had been forgotten in a back closet of a retail pharmacy for so long that some of the pills predated the 1969 moon landing. Most were 30 to 40 years past their expiration dates — possibly toxic, probably worthless. But to Lee Cantrell,...
Nursing home workers across the country are posting embarrassing and dehumanizing photos of elderly residents on social media networks such as Snapchat, violating their privacy, dignity and, sometimes, the law. ProPublica has identified 35 instances since 2012 in...
It’s one of the intractable financial boondoggles of the U.S. health care system: Lots and lots of patients get lots and lots of tests and procedures that they don’t need. Women still get annual cervical cancer testing even when it’s recommended every three to five...
ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. This much is clear: The public is angry about the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs. Surveys have shown that high...
ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. At a time when the United States is in the grip of an opioid epidemic, many insurers are limiting access to pain...
Back in 2014, federal officials settled on what they thought would be a straightforward fix to curb abusive pill pushing: Require doctors and other health providers to register with the Medicare program in order to prescribe medications for beneficiaries. That way,...
The long arm of the pharmaceutical industry continues to pervade practically every area of medicine, reaching those who write guidelines that shape doctors' practices, patient advocacy organizations, letter writers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,...
The nation’s health care tab is sky-high. We’re tracking down the reasons. First stop: A look at all the perfectly good stuff hospitals throw away. Read more on ProPublica.
Introducing Vital Signs ProPublica has accumulated a wealth of data from across the U.S. about how medicine is really practiced. Get to know your health care provider better and sign up for notifications every time we update the data or if we spot something new or...
Canada May Decide It's Less Canada's top health agency is considering lowering the maximum recommended daily dose of acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol and other pain relievers. Citing the risk of liver damage from overdosing on the popular pain...
Popular Blood Thinner Causing Deaths, Injuries at Nursing Homes When Loren Peters arrived in the emergency room in October 2013, bruises covered his frail body, and blood oozed from his gums. The 85-year-old had not been in a fight or fallen down. Instead, he had been...
The federal government released detailed data on nearly 1.4 billion prescriptions dispensed to seniors and disabled people in the Medicare program in 2013, bringing more openness to the medication choices of doctors nationwide. The data release comes two years after...
Muckreads Edition The Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010 and we're now in the second year since health insurance exchanges got up and running. So, how's the law doing? That's a complicated question. With the help of senior reporter Charles Ornstein, we've curated...