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The median cost of a personal care worker for someone who needs help with daily household tasks is estimated at $51,480 a year in Wisconsin, according to an annual survey of long-term care costs. That's based on someone who receives 44 hours a week, or a bit more than six hours a day, of personal care. The cost, up 7.14% this year, is higher than care at an assisted-living center but less than at a nursing home, according to the survey by Genworth Financial Inc. (Boulton, 6/28)

University Health System officials report a continuing decline in the number of people enrolling in CareLink, its financial assistance program for low-income, uninsured Bexar County residents seeking medical care at its facilities. (O'Hare, 6/28)

Meghan Stewart, a nurse who began working four years ago at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, filed suit on Friday in U.S. District Court in Houston, claiming that she and more than 4,000 of her co-workers aren't paid for tending to patients during their meal periods. The filing came the same day other nurses settled a similar lawsuit against Houston Methodist Hospital. (Sixel, 6/28)

Ethnic minorities, low-income workers and those who live in rural areas may be missing out on early diagnosis and state-of-the-art treatments for cystic fibrosis, according to Emory University researchers. ... Heel-stick tests for newborns have been around for more than 50 years, and in 2007 Georgia added cystic fibrosis (CF) to the list of more than 30 serious health conditions detected by this method. The test, however, isn’t perfect. It picks up 23 different abnormal changes in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene, many of which can cause serious problems in multiple organ systems, but all of these mutations were identified by studying Caucasian people. So the test may miss genetic changes that lead to CF in patients of other ethnicities. (McGill, 6/28)

This increase in Latino youth has the potential to fuel the country’s overall growth, re-energize its aging population and give it a much-needed economic shot in the arm, advocates say. ... Latino children, for example, are 12 times more likely than white kids to be both poor and living in impoverished neighborhoods. And living in high-poverty neighborhoods limits a youth’s access to fresh food, quality schools, affordable housing and health care — and has the potential to literally impair their growth and development, the 2016 Champion of Children report finds. (Pyle, 6/29)

Internships can often pave the way for a lucrative career, but one woman sought her internship at the U. S. Department of Labor in Dallas to serve as a "mole" for her family's $30 million health care fraud, federal prosecutors said. (Krause, 6/28)

Violence in north St. Louis is prompting one of the few urgent care clinics in the area to close on the weekends. A gun battle outside the doors of North City Urgent Care on a Saturday last month was the last straw, said Dr. Sonny Sagar, its medical director. The clinic, at 6113 Ridge Ave., sits in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood and is one of just a few urgent care facilities in the area. (Bouscaren, 6/28)

Now 23, [Amelia] Ballard, who has been cancer-free for several years, is returning to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta — not as a patient — but as a nurse in the emergency room department. “My goal is to provide the best care possible and meet every need required,” the Atlanta woman said in a recent interview at the hospital. “I want to pay it forward and provide each of my patients and their families with the care and compassion shown to me and my family.” (Oliviero, 6/28)