Francis Collins
Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, will be a featured speaker at the Association of Health Care Journalists’ Summit on Infectious Disease next month.
AHCJ has recruited experts and leading health care journalists to discuss data resources, treatments and vaccine development, health workers and vulnerable populations, COVID-19 and influenza sharing a season. Continue reading
The latest issue of HealthBeat is expected to be delivered to members of the Association of Health Care Journalists any day now.
In this issue, we highlight some of our best advice and resources for covering the novel coronavirus and COVID-19, from keeping nursing home residents safe to debunking conspiracy theories (and doesn’t it seem as if there’s a new one each week?)
Photo: Anthony via Flickr
A reporting team’s in-depth investigation into a growing dental chain offers a troubling chronicle of dentists under pressure to meet revenue targets and patient allegations of overtreatment.
Reporters from USA Today and Newsy, the investigative unit owned by E. W. Scripps Company, spent more than a year examining the inner workings of North American Dental Group. The Pittsburg-based chain represents “a new trend of dental offices bought by private-equity investors and turned into revenue-generating machines,” their project explained. Continue reading
Manuela Tobias
Dental patients in need of costly procedures may turn to medical credit cards to pay for the services. But these cards, which often include deferred-interest provisions, can pose risks.
If consumers do not fully understand the terms or fall behind on payments, they can end up facing inflated bills and crippling dental debts, as Fresno Bee reporter Manuela Tobias explained in a recent investigative piece. Continue reading
Spurred by concerns about opioid addiction and antibiotic overuse, experts have urged clinicians across health care disciplines to take a hard look at their prescribing habits. Dentists, who are numbered among the nation’s leading prescribers of opioids and antibiotics, have been included in these warnings.
Dentists were responsible for writing more than 11 million opioid prescriptions one recent year, yet experts have cautioned that addiction often begins with such routine prescriptions. Continue reading
Photo: Marco Verch via Flickr
In carefully worded directives intended to slow the spread of COVID-19 and conserve protective equipment, government health officials are urging U.S. dental clinics to postpone most procedures.
Without personal protective equipment (PPE), even routine oral health services can easily expose workers and patients to transmission of a variety disease. Providers and patients are face-to-face; instruments used in the procedures generate droplets containing water, saliva, blood and microorganisms, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes in new infection control guidelines for providing dental care during the COVID-19 emergency. But patients who have or may have COVID-19 present additional risks, according to the agency. Continue reading
