The Washington Post Wonkblog: “One hospital charges $8,000 – another, $38,000.” The piece contains an interactive graphic to allow readers to check on how much providers charge in their state. And it used this graphic: The Huffington Post: “Hospital Prices No Longer Secret As New Data Reveals Bewildering System, Staggering Cost Differences.” Their graphic: [...]
The Association of Health Care Journalists launched a new website – hospitalinspections.org – that has something to offer not only journalists but the general public as well. AHCJ says the site: “…aims to make federal hospital inspection reports easier to access, search and analyze. This site includes details about deficiencies cited during complaint inspections at [...]
Veteran journalist and health policy specialist Trudy Lieberman has begun a new series, “Medicare Uncovered,” on the Columbia Journalism Review website. The first in the series is on “the pain from ‘skin in the game.’ ” In it, she writes: Right before Christmas, when Beltway reporters were absorbed in the fisticuffs on the edge of [...]
The following is a guest post by Harold DeMonaco, who is one of our expert story reviewers on HealthNewsReview.org. —————————————————- Last week, Kaiser Health News reported on the upcoming reimbursement penalties that most hospitals in the United States are about to incur. Their analysis (pdf file) of Medicare data suggest that 2,211 hospitals will face [...]
“Should a journalist, even one who has been retired from local TV news for nearly four years, leverage the credibility he developed as an objective, independent reporter to tout one insurance company for pay?” That’s the question Eric Deggans, TV/media critic of the St. Petersburg Times asks about longtime Tampa Bay area TV anchor Bob [...]
That’s a phrase used by Rita F. Redberg, MD, University of California San Francisco cardiologist and the editor of Archives of Internal Medicine, in her New York Times opinion piece, “Squandering Medicare’s Money.” Excerpt: Medicare spends a fortune each year on procedures that have no proven benefit and should not be covered. Examples abound: • [...]
The following is a guest post submitted by Harold DeMonaco, director of the Innovation Support Center at the Massachusetts General Hospital and one of our most active expert story reviewers on HealthNewsReview.org.————————————————————————————————————————Last week’s New England Journal of Medicine had two rather provocative and thought provoking perspectives. The first relates to a decision by the Center [...]
Larry Husten, on his Cardiobrief blog, reports: Drug-eluting stents (DESs) cost Medicare an additional $1.57 billion per year, according to a study published online in the Archives of Internal Medicine.…In an editor’s note, Rita Redberg wrote that “it is time to clearly define what the value of this extraordinary investment has been in terms of [...]
See the Wall Street Journal piece, “Top Spine Surgeons Reap Royalties, Medicare Bounty.” It begins: Norton Hospital in Louisville, Ky., may not be a household name nationally. But five senior spine surgeons have helped put it on the map in at least one category: From 2004 to 2008, Norton performed the third-most spinal fusions on [...]
ProPublica has published another blockbuster piece of investigative health journalism: “Dialysis:The High Costs and Hidden Perils of a Treatment Guaranteed to All.” In an accompanying editor’s note, we learn a little bit about how much effort went into this project: “For two years, ProPublica reporter Robin Fields prodded CMS officials to release this data under [...]
This story focuses on a family that may have a rare genetic mutation that increases their risk of heart disease. Unfortunately, the “rare” part wasn’t mentioned until 1,600 words into this 2,100 word story.
While this story adequately addressed 7 of our 10 criteria, the 3 on which it missed were significant omissions, yet could have been easily addressed.
Solid medical conference reporting, with many expert interviews and good context provided. Goes far beyond the conference presentation itself.
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