Los Angeles Times

A study finds that Medicare patients near death are increasingly choosing hospice or palliative care over heroic measures in their last days — but that many go through futile hospitalizations and treatments first.

For Americans with a terminal diagnosis, death increasingly comes in the places and ways they say they want it — at home and in the comfort of hospice care.

Many seniors enrolled in SilverScript have found themselves facing inexplicably large bills that CVS has refused to negotiate.

Deborah Shapiro decided a few months ago to switch her prescription drug coverage from her former employer's plan to Medicare. The Medicare literature made clear that she could save hundreds of dollars on the various drugs she and her husband required.

Doctors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants at community clinics work long hours, treating multitudes of patients who often have more than one chronic illness.

Every day after work, Sandeep Lehil changes out of her lab coat and blue scrubs and sits cross-legged on a large, black pillow in her airy, quiet Los Feliz apartment. She takes two deep breaths and tries not to think about the patients she so desperately wants to help.

The intent is to make them more appealing to patients under the healthcare overhaul. But victims of past violence at hospitals are among many who oppose the change.

It was typically chaotic in the emergency room at Los Angeles County/USC Medical Center that February day in 1993. Richard May was treating patients in the triage area when a disgruntled man started ranting about the long wait. Then, without warning, the man pulled a gun and started shooting, hitting May in the head, chest and arm and seriously wounding two other doctors.

As President Obama and congressional Republicans prepare for a new battle over spending, the White House puts up a wall around healthcare for the nation's poor.

WASHINGTON — Healthcare for the nation's poor, once viewed as especially vulnerable in this era of budget cutting, has emerged as a surprisingly secure government entitlement with as much political clout as the Medicare and Social Security retirement programs.

Struggling local governments welcome large music events staged by L.A.-based promoters, but reports reveal a tragic pattern of drug overdoses.

On the edge of the Mojave, music promoter Pasquale Rotella staged a rave about 11 years ago that ended with a coroner's wagon rolling down desert roads.

The Obama administration proposes that employees of some religiously affiliated workplaces get contraceptive coverage through a separate, private insurance policy at no cost.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, trying to defuse one of the most contentious issues in its healthcare law, proposed Friday a new way to shield religiously affiliated organizations, such as hospitals and universities, from having to provide contraceptive coverage directly to their employees.

The state medical board says Nathan Kuemmerle, who lost his privilege to prescribe drugs after entering guilty plea, will be able to treat patients again.

A West Hollywood psychiatrist who pleaded guilty to felony drug dealing after pills he prescribed turned up for sale on Craigslist will be able to get his medical license back in a year under an agreement announced Friday by the Medical Board of California.

Of all of the muscles in the body, the ones in the midsection get an outsized share of attention. They even have their own brand name: "the core." As in core workouts, core training and core strength.

You've heard about the "Wheat Belly" diet, right? Well, technically, it doesn't exist.

Nothing's scarier than being invisible on a bike, and that can happen too often with the sun still setting before 6 p.m. That's why there's no excuse not to carry bike lights along, especially when some of the new ones are so convenient and compact that they'll stow in the smallest fanny pack, pocket or tool bag.

Regulations to bring new transparency about corporate and other payments to physicians are 15 months past due.

Though few patients realize it, many doctors receive thousands of dollars from pharmaceutical companies for each patient enrolled in an experimental drug trial. The medication might be the best thing for the patient's condition. The doctor's motives might be pure. But patients should be able to find out about such payments so they can discuss them with their doctors and decide for themselves whether the doctor's participation in an experiment might compromise his medical advice.

If 39 states do not enact laws to enforce new consumer protections in the Affordable Care Act, the federal government may have to step in to guarantee them.

WASHINGTON — Nearly 4 out of 5 states have not enacted laws essential to enforcing new consumer protections in President Obama's healthcare law, less than a year before it is supposed to be fully implemented, a new survey indicates.

An $87,500 bill for a 20-minute knee procedure is just an extreme example of high amounts that insurers are billed by out-of-network surgery centers, experts say. Insurers are starting to fight back.

A Southern California surgery center charged teacher Lynne Nielsen $87,500 for a routine, 20-minute knee operation that normally costs about $3,000.

The California agency's board is wrestling with recommendations for changes in its membership and its authority over the spending of its $3-billion endowment.

Compromise, defined as the art of getting part of a loaf when the whole loaf is out of reach, comes in many forms. But surely the strangest of all is what comes of trying to compromise with yourself.

Nonprofit healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente had a 40% share of California's $59-billion health insurance market for employers and individuals, new data show.