Category Archives: Uncategorized

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.

A reporter considers the consequences of publishing a source’s legal status

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Marc Ramirez

Millions of unauthorized immigrant adults — who represent more than 80% of immigrants living in the United States illegally — contribute to public health programs they may never benefit from because of their legal status. In a recent story that highlighted the lack of health care coverage for undocumented older people, Marc Ramirez, a national correspondent for USA TODAY, interviewed a man from Mexico, in part because the vast majority of unauthorized immigrants are from Latin America.  Continue reading →

Margarita Birnbaum (@mbirnbaumnews) is AHCJ's Health Equity Core Topic Leader. An independent journalist who has covered health disparities. Birnbaum’s stories have been published by WebMD, American Heart Association News, and American Indian, the magazine of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.

The older population is growing and becoming more diverse

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Photo by Street Phonicz Photography via nappy.co

The Administration for Community Living (ACL) has published its profile of older Americans 2021, an annual summary of critical statistics related to the older population. The updated report shows an older population that’s increasing in size and diversity.

There’s a wealth of data in this report journalists can use as a starting point to report on local and state social services, community programs, Medicaid expenditures, housing, transportation and myriad other issues affecting older adults — defined by the Administration on Aging as those 65 and older.

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Liz Seegert is an independent health journalist and AHCJ’s topic leader on aging. She covers older adults, baby boomers, health policy, and social determinants of health, as well as many other health issues. Her bylines include stories for PBS/NextAvenue.org. the American Journal of Nursing, TIME Health, Medscape, Consumer Reports, and Medical Economics, as well as dozens of other trade and mainstream media. Her articles have been syndicated in Forbes.com, the Los Angeles Times, the Hartford Courant, the Saturday Evening Post and other major outlets.