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Earlier this month, when Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center in Houston announced it was temporarily suspending its renowned heart transplant program, it threw the care of dozens of patients into limbo, including some who have yet to hear directly from the hospital. Now those patients are left waiting to learn if the troubled program will restart Friday, at the end of a two-week internal review, or if it is in store for a much longer overhaul. (Ornstein and Hixenbaugh, 6/13)

Eight days after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, Efrain Perez felt a pain in his chest. Doctors near his small town sent him to Puerto Rico's main hospital for emergency surgery for an aortic aneurysm. But when the ambulance pulled into the parking lot in the capital, San Juan, after a more than two-hour drive, a doctor ran out to stop it. (6/12)

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the health system for former military personnel, thinks sentiments like this are keeping many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender veterans like Robertson from using the services they are entitled to. The federal agency is working to embrace the very service members the military once ostracized even as the Trump Administration takes steps that could make such veterans feel unwelcome. (McDaniels, 6/12)

A Cherokee Nation hospital in Oklahoma is testing more than 180 patients for HIV and hepatitis after allegations that a nurse reused syringes to administer medications. The nurse violated protocols by using the same vial of medication and syringe to inject multiple intravenous bags at W.W. Hastings Hospital in Tahlequah, according to Cherokee officials. The nurse no longer works for the tribe, the Tulsa World reported. (6/12)

Federal health officials are investigating an April data breach that affected 55,947 patients of Dignity Health, a major health system headquartered in San Francisco that operates 39 hospitals and 400 care centers in California, Nevada and Arizona. ...It was the third-largest data breach, by number of affected patients, reported to the federal health agency that month. (Ho, 6/12)

The longtime leader of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, the state’s second-largest commercial health insurer, abruptly resigned Tuesday for what the company said was behavior “inconsistent” with its values. The company declined to specify what led to the departure of Eric H. Schultz, who had been chief executive and president of the Wellesley-based insurer since 2010, succeeding Charlie Baker. (Dayal McCluskey, 6/12)

President and CEO Eric Schultz had been under investigation for at least three weeks, according to employees who spoke on background because they were not authorized by the company to speak on the matter. Several of those employees added that during that time, they had no reason to think the findings would force Schultz to leave. But that wasn't the case. (Bebinger, 6/12)

Lieutenant governor hopeful Mike Collier announced his health care reform plan Tuesday, which aims to reduce costs and increase access to health care in Texas. “Achieving these goals will not be easy,” Collier said in a statement. “But it’s time to get cracking. Doing nothing — the only skill our current governor and lieutenant governor seem to possess — is no longer acceptable.” (Marfin, 6/12)

Victims of the East Area Rapist, the serial killer suspected in at least 12 murders and 51 rapes throughout California decades ago, were thrust into the spotlight when police in April arrested Joseph James DeAngelo. Now, they could receive compensation for new trauma related to the arrest. (Browning and Sullivan, 6/13)

UnitedHealth Group is pushing further into the hearing aid business by purchasing the subsidiary of a Swiss hearing aid manufacturer that manages insurance benefits for the devices. The Minnetonka-based health care giant said it has directed customers for more than a decade to a company called Epic Hearing when employers want to supplement their employee health insurance plan with financial benefits for workers who need hearing aids. (Snowbeck, 6/12)

Two brothers who ran a bribes-for-referrals health fraud scam that brought in more than $100 million over several years were due in court Wednesday to face sentencing, in a case that already has produced more than 50 guilty pleas or convictions. David and Scott Nicoll were arrested in 2013 and pleaded guilty to conspiracy and money laundering through their New Jersey company, Biodiagnostic Laboratory Services. Of more than 50 people who have pleaded guilty since then, more than three dozen were doctors who admitted taking bribes. (6/13)

More than two years after they first announced a potential partnership, Centegra Health System will officially join Northwestern Medicine on Sept. 1, having earned all the necessary regulatory approvals, the health systems said Tuesday. No money changed hands as part of the deal, though Northwestern will take on Centegra’s debt, said Northwestern spokesman Christopher King. As to why finalization took more than two years, King said in an email: “Every affiliation discussion is different and there is no set timeline for these types of discussions. We believe the timeline was appropriate.” (Schencker, 6/12)

A hardy, invasive species of tick that survived a New Jersey winter and subsequently traversed the mid-Atlantic has mysteriously arrived in Arkansas. No one is sure how the Longhorned tick, native to East Asia, arrived in the country, nor how it made its way to the middle of the continent. The Arkansas Agriculture Department said late Monday researchers at Oklahoma State University had confirmed a tick found on a dog in Benton County in the far northwestern corner of the state was a Longhorned tick. Until then, the bug had only been reported in New Jersey, Virginia and West Virginia. (Grabenstein, 6/12)

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is eyeing Fort Bliss, an Army base close to El Paso, as a potential location for a cluster of temporary shelters that could house between 1,000 and 5,000 children, McClatchy reported. ...The tent city proposal is the Department of Health and Human Services' latest idea for housing the growing number of children under their care, who are quickly filling shelters. (Parker and Aguilar, 6/12)

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to expand services for homeless people in areas where the city of Los Angeles has struggled. The supervisors approved the overnight placement of two portable toilets and hand-washing stations at the Rose Avenue beach parking lot in Venice Beach — the latest development in an ongoing debate about bathroom access for the homeless. (Agrawal, 6/12)