Category Archives: Uncategorized

Tip sheet: Questions to ask at medical conferences
when time is short

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health journalism 2023 conference attendees

Attendees at Health Journalism 2023 in St. Louis listen to a session. Photo by Zachary Linhares

Conferences can be hectic to cover, and it’s difficult sometimes to pin down the researcher or presenter you need, much less get quotes from other attendees about a particular presentation. It can be even more challenging when you’re covering a conference virtually. In either case, preparation is key, and one of the most important ways to prepare is knowing the kinds of questions you’ll be asking presenters and outside experts. 

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Tara Haelle (@TaraHaelle) is AHCJ's medical studies core topic leader, guiding journalists through the jargon-filled shorthand of science and research and enabling them to translate the evidence into accurate information.

Data reporter shines light
on hospital price transparency in Connecticut

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Mary Katherine Wildeman

AP Data Reporter Mary Katherine Wildeman

More than two years after a federal rule required all hospitals to post what they charge patients, compliance with the rule has been poor. Knowing that hospitals mostly failed to meet the requirements of the Hospital Price Transparency rule effective on Jan. 1, 2021, Mary Katherine Wildeman (@mkwildeman), a data reporter for the Associated Press, spent months last year determining how well Connecticut’s health systems were complying with the rule. At the time, Wildeman worked as a data reporter for Hearst Connecticut Media.

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Joseph Burns (@jburns18), an independent journalist who resides in Brewster, Massachusetts, is AHCJ’s topic leader on health reform. He welcomes questions and suggestions and tip sheets at joseph@healthjournalism.org.

Why it’s important to cover hospitals suing patients over medical debt 

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A survey from KFF shows one in seven adults in the United States who have health care debt say a medical provider has denied them care due to their debt. Source: KFF Health Care Debt Survey (Feb. 25-Mar. 20, 2022). https://www.kff.org/report-section/kff-health-care-debt-survey-main-findings/ accessed dec. 23, 2022.

Recent news shows the need for health care journalists to investigate the aggressive measures hospitals use when patients can’t pay their medical bills.

On Dec. 21, Noam N. Levey, an award-winning senior correspondent for Kaiser Health News (KHN), reported that when patients can’t pay their bills, hundreds of the nation’s hospitals file lawsuits against those patients, sell patients’ bad-debt accounts to debt buyers and report patients to credit rating agencies. 

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Joseph Burns (@jburns18), an independent journalist who resides in Brewster, Massachusetts, is AHCJ’s topic leader on health reform. He welcomes questions and suggestions and tip sheets at joseph@healthjournalism.org.

Journalists intensify coverage of the harms of private equity 

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Photo via Canva

Critical coverage of private equity firms — which buy companies and restructure their operations in order to quickly sell them for a profit— has been picking up.

In the last six months:

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Mary Chris Jaklevic is AHCJ's topic leader for patient safety. She has been a contributor to HealthNewsReview.org, a project that aimed to improve health care journalism by critiquing the accuracy and balance of media messages about medical interventions, and was an AHCJ board member from 2005 to 2009.

Why using the term ‘immunity debt’ is problematic for reporters

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Photo by Gustavo Fring via pexels.

As the number of hospitalized children with influenza, RSV, COVID-19 and other infections continues to soar, multiple media outlets have published stories suggesting one of the causes of the severity of illnesses is “immunity debt,” because of social distancing and masking measures taken during the height of the pandemic.

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Bara Vaida is AHCJ's core topic leader on infectious diseases. She has written extensively about health policy and infectious diseases. Tara Haelle is medical studies core topic leader, guiding journalists through jargon and helping them translate evidence into accurate information. Tara Haelle (@TaraHaelle) is AHCJ's medical studies core topic leader, guiding journalists through the jargon-filled shorthand of science and research and enabling them to translate the evidence into accurate information.