Lisa Schencker

Lisa Schencker is a Tribune business reporter covering health care. She writes about patients, hospitals, health insurers and pharmaceutical companies. Before joining the Tribune in 2016, she worked at Modern Healthcare and at daily newspapers across the country, including the Salt Lake Tribune for seven years.

A Planned Parenthood facility on North Lewis Avenue in Waukegan on Aug. 3, 2022. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)

Planned Parenthood of Illinois agrees to pay $500K over allegations of discrimination against white employees

March 19, 2026 at 6:17 p.m.

Planned Parenthood of Illinois has agreed to pay $500,000 following an investigation by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission into allegations that its white employees faced harassment and discrimination.

An electron microscope image shows human respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) virions, colorized blue, and anti-RSV F protein/gold antibodies, colorized yellow, shedding from the surface of human lung cells. (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)

Chicago public health officials report unusually high RSV activity for this late in the winter

March 18, 2026 at 5:24 p.m.

The respiratory illness RSV is still going strong in Chicago – an unusually late showing for the virus, which can strike infants especially hard.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attends President Donald Trump's State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in the House chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Feb. 24, 2026. (Allison Robbert/AP)

Acting on a suit filed by Illinois medical group, judge blocks rollback of federal vaccine recommendations

March 16, 2026 at 8:16 p.m.

A number of leading medical groups, including the Itasca-based American Academy of Pediatrics, expressed concern that changes in the vaccine recommendations could lead to more children becoming ill.

The Springfield headquarters of the Illinois Department of Public Health, along the 500 block of West Jefferson Street, Feb. 8, 2024. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)

Federal judge halts Trump administration’s health care funding cuts to Illinois, for now

March 16, 2026 at 4:15 p.m.

A federal judge has blocked efforts by the Trump administration to withhold $600 million in health care grants from Illinois and three other states, while the states’ lawsuit over the...

Mercy Medical Center in Aurora in April 2025. The hospital, part of Prime Healthcare, may soon no longer be in-network with the state’s largest health insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois. (R. Christian Smith / The Beacon-News)

Prime Healthcare’s hospitals could soon be out-of-network for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois members

March 13, 2026 at 2:40 p.m.

If Prime and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois can’t reach an agreement, Blue Cross members who use Prime services might have to switch doctors or face higher costs...

Lurie Children's Hospital hopes to build a new hospital in Downers Grove on land near the intersection of I-88 and I-355. (Clayco)

Lurie reveals exact location of new Downers Grove children’s hospital, offers more details

March 13, 2026 at 1:41 p.m.

Lurie Children’s Hospital is planning to build its new pediatric hospital on now-vacant land in Downer’s Grove near the intersection of I-88 and I-355.

Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago's Streeterville neighborhood on Nov. 12, 2025. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune)

Northwestern Memorial gets approval for $96 million ICU bed expansion, part of larger growth plan

March 10, 2026 at 12:46 p.m.

Northwestern Memorial Hospital may move forward with a $96 million project to add more intensive care unit beds and build a two-story connector between buildings, a state board decided.

Abbott Laboratories in Abbott Park on June 25, 2018. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)

Opening arguments begin in first Illinois trial against Abbott over its formula for premature babies

March 10, 2026 at 1:59 p.m.

Attorneys for parents and Abbott Laboratories faced off during opening arguments Monday in the first Chicago trial over Abbott's formula for prematurely born babies.

The Abbott AbbVie manufacturing location along North Waukegan Road on Feb. 23, 2026, in North Chicago. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)

Trial over Abbott Laboratories’ formula for premature babies set to begin in Cook County this week

March 4, 2026 at 5:00 a.m.

The latest chapter in an ongoing legal battle between Abbott Laboratories and parents of babies born prematurely is set to play out in a Chicago courtroom this week.

Maryann Mason, professor of emergency medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, was a researcher on a report analyzing data about fatal child abuse in Illinois. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune)

Children ages 3 and younger most often victims of fatal child abuse in Illinois, according to new report

February 27, 2026 at 10:00 a.m.

For the report, Northwestern researchers aimed to analyze violent deaths of Illinois children ages 10 and younger who died at the hands of caregivers between 2015 and 2022.

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