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The state Senate Thursday night passed an expansive bill aimed at influencing the state’s fast-changing health care landscape, a measure driven largely by Senate leaders’ concerns about large hospital systems gaining too much market power and driving up costs. (Levin Becker, 5/21)

A group representing 25,000 doctors in Massachusetts issued new guidelines Thursday for prescribing pain medication, citing an epidemic of opioid abuse that claimed the lives of more than 1,000 people in the state last year. (5/21)

Boston Children’s Hospital is extending its reach to patients far outside Boston, with a deal to acquire a large and growing group of doctors in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. (Dayal McCluskey, 5/21)

[Jeff] Gold may be the first physician in Massachusetts practicing under a model called direct primary care. For a flat monthly fee, Gold offers patients one-hour same-day appointments, no wait. The doctor is available 24/7 in person, at the office, at the patient’s home, via text, email or Skype. (Bebinger, 5/21)

Indiana approved a yearlong needle-exchange program Thursday for a rural county at the center of an HIV outbreak that spurred a new state law allowing such programs to curb the spread of diseases among intravenous drug users. State health Commissioner Dr. Jerome Adams' approval for Scott County includes a public health emergency declaration that will allow it to operate a needle-exchange through May 24, 2016. The southeastern Indiana county has operated a temporary needle-exchange since early April under executive orders Gov. Mike Pence signed in response to the largest HIV outbreak in state history. (5/21)

Physician-assisted suicide is illegal in all but five states. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen in the rest. Sick patients sometimes ask for help in hastening their deaths, and some doctors will hint, vaguely, how to do it. This leads to bizarre, veiled conversations between medical professionals and overwhelmed families. Doctors and nurses want to help but also want to avoid prosecution, so they speak carefully, parsing their words. Family members, in the midst of one of the most confusing and emotional times of their lives, are left to interpret euphemisms. (Dembosky, 5/21)

Heroin, today, is killing more and more people in rural america. One Mexican cartel has seeded low-cost heroin around rural towns in the Southwest and Midwest, selling it cheap and easy, almost like pizza. Madison, Neb. — population 2,500 — is just a speck of a town, a two-hour drive from the big-city bustle of Omaha. But it's not far enough away to avoid the growing impact of heroin. (Calvan, 5/22)

The former director of a drug treatment center in Des Moines mismanaged more than $130,000 intended for client benefits, according to a state audit released Wednesday. Mindy Williams, former executive director of Center for Behavioral Health in Des Moines, falsified receipts and other documentation when seeking reimbursements for incentive benefits issued to clients, according to a special report by state Auditor Mary Mosiman's office. Those incentive benefits included gas cards, gift cards and bus passes used to help clients continue seeking services. (5/20)

Tulsa County began recycling prescription drugs 10 years ago. More than $16 million worth of medicines have been given to the poor. Steve Inskeep talks to Linda Johnston, director of Social Services. (5/22)

Johnson & Johnson will pay $7.8 million to settle the state of Arkansas’s claims the company illegally marketed its Risperdal antipsychotic medicine, a case that featured a billion-dollar award against the drugmaker that was thrown out. (Feeley, 5/21)

To the surprise of many, in March, the legislature of Maryland passed 2 bills that would amend an outdated health insurance mandate that excluded same-sex couples from coverage for in vitro fertilization treatments. (Adashi, 5/20)