The traditional doctor-patient relationship in which a single doctor gets to know you over years will become a luxury. Those who want a personal physician will have to pay extra for that service. Doctors who chafe at working for big organizations will opt out and charge patients retainer fees.

In The Story of the Human Body, evolutionary biologist Daniel Lieberman explains how our bodies haven't adapted to modern conditions. The result is "mismatched diseases" — ailments that occur because our bodies weren't designed for the environments in which we now live.

About $29 billion in funding for the expansion of health coverage under the Affordable Care Act is expected to come from a tax on devices. Hip implants, MRI scanners and catheters to unclog heart arteries are all affected. Toothbrushes, contact lenses, hearing aids and other consumer products are exempt.

The whooping cough vaccine isn't perfect, but public health officials suspected that something else contributed to the 2010 pertussis outbreak in California. A study finds that neighborhoods where more parents filed for vaccination exemptions for their children had higher rates of infection.

If all goes as planned, people who don't have insurance will be able to shop for it on online insurance marketplaces starting Tuesday. As long as people sign up by Dec. 15, they'll be covered starting Jan. 1.

With online health-insurance markets set to open this week, it's still unclear whether healthy people will sign up. Yet the success of the program depends on them.

Increasingly, high quality oils have a harvest date stamped on the label. Why? Olive oil goes rancid and loses many of the beneficial compounds in just a few months. If the oil stings the back of your throat, the beneficial compounds are there, experts say.

It smells like vinegar and tastes like spoiled cider. But fans of the fermented tea say that kombucha helps fight off diseases and aging. Sounds fantastical? Well, it probably is. At this point, scientists still know little about kombucha's health effects.

The public can provide comments on a new plan that would affect how hospital costs are paid under Maryland's unique Medicare waiver agreement.

As a "patient navigator," nurse Wendy Shindler sorts out ER patients who don't need emergency care from those who do. The goal is to achieve better care at a lower cost, but you tell us: Should emergency rooms be able to turn more people away?