Photo: Rachel via Flickr
Every year, all employers negotiate with health insurers over what they’ll pay in insurance premiums for the coming year. And many employers also negotiate with hospitals, health systems and physician groups over what they’ll pay in direct-contracting arrangements that bypass traditional insurance contracts.
In both negotiations, the employers will be seeking better care and lower costs, as they do each year. Continue reading
Kentucky, Nebraska, Nevada and North Dakota are the only four states in the U.S. that (as of May 13) have provided zero disaggregated data on the racial and ethnic impact of COVID-19 on its residents, even as there is a growing body of evidence nationwide demonstrating the pandemic is having a disproportionate effect on communities of color.
This lack of transparency in key parts of the country is among several under-covered stories for reporters to pursue in their communities, according to panelists who offered advice on covering disparities and COVID-19 at an AHCJ webcast on May 13. Continue reading
Photo: samuelrodgers752 via Flickr
At a certain point, you think you’ve seen all of those maddening, intentionally misleading Facebook math riddles. The first one I recall led to an unfriending on Facebook — and my first article for Slate. It discussed the history of “order of operations” and the ambiguities of math “language” (and amusingly led to just as much debate in the comments as on Facebook). Continue reading
It can be hard enough to keep up with the peer-reviewed research flooding out of journals related to COVID-19 and the SARS-CoV2 coronavirus. Monitoring the possibly larger flood of preprints — scientific papers made available before publication in a peer-reviewed journal — is even tougher, especially since they aren’t indexed in PubMed. Continue reading
As many health care journalists have reported that they’re covering “all COVID, all the time” during the past two months, AHCJ freelancers offered their advice about the best ways to approach reporting and writing, as well as their own mental health while working on assignments.
Overall, the advice highlights many of the principles that reporters already hold dear — choose your sources carefully, review the science behind published studies, and find ways to carve out personal time from a 24/7 news cycle.
Related to news coverage at this moment, the freelancers also suggested doing background research with new webcasts and press briefings online, finding story ideas in new communications and newsletters created by trusted sources, and creating a routine to stay on top of the most recent research.
Photo: Axel Drainville via Flickr
A growing body of data indicates that COVID-19 is disproportionately impacting both communities of color and vulnerable populations such as incarcerated and homeless individuals.
Two studies earlier this month — one from AIDS research group amfAR and another from the Kaiser Family Foundation — found that communities of color and low-income individuals account for a higher percent of COVID-19 cases and deaths in comparison to the broader U.S. population. Since early April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been reporting more details about COVID-19 patients’ race and ethnicity, as well as underlying health issues, which has increased news coverage of this issue. Continue reading