Tag Archives: access

Verma participates in first of promised series of ’roundtables’ with reporters

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Kimberly Leonard

About Kimberly Leonard

Kimberly Leonard (@leonardkl) is a member of AHCJ’s Right to Know Committee and co-chair of the Washington, D.C., chapter. She covers Congress, the White House, and the Department of Health and Human Services as a health care reporter for the Washington Examiner.

Seema Verma

Seema Verma, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, held her first on-the-record, in-person meeting with reporters in Washington, D.C., on Thursday as the agency pledged to make her more accessible, through both smaller and larger gatherings.

Verma spoke with 10 reporters for one hour, beginning the conversation by discussing the sustainability of Medicare and then answering reporters’ questions on Medicaid expansion, value-based care, and the Affordable Care Act. Continue reading →

HHS secretary promises ‘open and transparent’ relationship with media

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Kimberly Leonard

About Kimberly Leonard

Kimberly Leonard (@leonardkl) is a member of AHCJ’s Right to Know Committee and co-chair of the Washington, D.C., chapter. She covers Congress, the White House, and the Department of Health and Human Services as a health care reporter for the Washington Examiner.

Alex Azar

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar pledged in his first on-the-record press conference Tuesday that he will have an “open and transparent” relationship with reporters, and said he does not envision a scenario in which anyone would be banned from covering the agency.

The statement, a welcome commitment to reporters, came one week after the Association of Health Care Journalists sent Azar a letter urging him to hold regular press conferences. Continue reading →

CMS makes amends with Modern Healthcare but questions remain

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Felice J. Freyer

About Felice J. Freyer

Felice J. Freyer is AHCJ's vice president a member of the association's Finance and Development Committee and chair of the organization's Right to Know Committee. She is a health care reporter for The Boston Globe.

Aurora Aguilar

The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services has promised Modern Healthcare that all of its reporters will have access to the agency’s telephone press conferences in the future, according to editor-in-chief Aurora Aguilar.

Aguilar said she received that assurance in a phone call from CMS on Monday, the day after Covering Health reported that a communications contractor with CMS had threatened to bar Virgil Dickson, Modern Healthcare’s Washington bureau chief, from press calls if he didn’t delete three sentences from a published story. Continue reading →

CMS threatens to bar Modern Healthcare from press calls after reporter refuses to alter story

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Felice J. Freyer

About Felice J. Freyer

Felice J. Freyer is AHCJ's vice president a member of the association's Finance and Development Committee and chair of the organization's Right to Know Committee. She is a health care reporter for The Boston Globe.

Virgil Dickson

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services threatened to ban a reporter from participating in the federal agency’s telephone news conferences after he refused to delete three sentences from a published story that apparently had rankled CMS Administrator Seema Verma.

The reporter — Virgil Dickson, Washington bureau chief for Modern Healthcare — believed the agency was making good on its threat on Thursday when, he said, his phone went mute during a CMS press call and a woman’s voice told him he was not allowed to participate. An editor later confirmed with CMS officials that he had been banned from press calls, Dickson said. Continue reading →

Tussle over CMS data shows the importance of getting all the facts, without delay

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Sabriya Rice

About Sabriya Rice

Sabriya Rice (@sabriyarice) is the business of health care reporter for the Dallas Morning News. She’s an AHCJ board member and vice chair of the association’s Right to Know committee.

When the federal government in June began to post a series of maps that showed how many health insurers would participate in the marketplaces set up by the Affordable Care Act, reporters quickly noted that one key element was missing from the posts: the data.

Health care journalists across the country sent inquiries to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services requesting the numbers behind the weekly health insurance coverage maps, which projected how many insurers would make options available, county-by-county, for 2018. Continue reading →