A House bill designed to curb Medicaid fraud on Friday became a vehicle to save floundering health care legislation. 

Independent pharmacists struggling to keep their doors open could soon expect more transparency in negotiating rates with Medicaid managed care organizations.  

Managed care plans would be required to offer more mental health services to Medicaid recipients under a bill tentatively approved by the House on Friday.

The House tentatively approved a bill to reform the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, bringing the state one step closer to restoring financing for the beleaguered agency.

Texas Right to Life is working overtime to defeat a measure supporters say would improve state laws governing end-of-life medical decisions. With time running out, the fight over the legislation has shifted from political to personal.

Medicaid providers would have clearer due process rights during fraud investigations under a measure the House gave tentative approval to on Wednesday.

UPDATED: Budget negotiations stretched late into the evening on Wednesday, but lawmakers said privately they didn’t expect to announce a deal until Thursday. 

On the latest Agenda Texas, from KUT News and the Tribune: Efforts to include Texas in the Affordable Care Act's expansion of Medicaid have come down to a single budget rider.

Harris County authorities and the Texas Department of State Health Services are investigating a Houston doctor accused Wednesday by an anti-abortion group of performing late-term abortions in 2011.

UPDATED: The Texas Senate on Wednesday approved legislation that would require a foster child's guardian to give informed consent before that child could be put on psychotropic drugs. The Senate will now conference with the House on a final agreement.

Last week Houston physician Steve Hotze, a major Republican campaign donor, announced he was suing the federal government over the Affordable Care Act. This week, he's singing a similar tune — literally.

After a years-long fight for prescriptive authority, advanced practice nurses and physician assistants supervised by a physician may soon get authority to prescribe controlled substances, under a bill the House gave an early OK to Tuesday.

In the waning days of budget negotiations, medical providers are pushing lawmakers to raise Medicaid reimbursement rates that were chopped two years ago.

State Rep. John Zerwas, a budget conferee, said Monday he’s relatively confident that a rider stipulating the Legislature's preferred Medicaid reform terms for any deal with the federal government would stick to the 2014-15 budget.

If the state Legislature approves reforms to the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, the embattled agency should have its financing restored, budget negotiators decided on Monday.

The Texas Medical Association is pushing measures this legislative session to help modernize medical practices, such as collecting or verifying patient data by swiping a driver's license.

UPDATED: The Supreme Court’s ruling that penalties under the Affordable Care Act qualify as taxes has opened the door to another constitutional challenge, Houston physician and Republican donor Steve Hotze said Tuesday. And he's filing suit. 

Small cigarette manufacturers would face new state fees on their sales under a measure that passed the Texas House in a preliminary vote on Monday — a big win for Big Tobacco. 

At the Trib's April 25 symposium on health care at the University of Texas at Austin, Dr. David Warner of the LBJ School of Public Affairs talked about the escalating cost of health care with Michelle Berger, president of the Travis County Medical Society; Jesus Garza, president and CEO of the Seton Healthcare Family; Dan McCoy, chief medical officer of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas; and Tom Suehs, former executive commissioner of Texas Health and Human Services.

Abortion is usually a contentious issue in the Texas Legislature, but this session, lawmakers have had relatively few public debates on it. Use this Tribune interactive to track the progress of bills related to abortion.