Tag Archives: HIV

Tips to expand coverage of LGBT health beyond HIV and AIDS

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Tara Haelle

About Tara Haelle

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.

Photo: Ted Eytan via Flickr

Photo: Ted Eytan via Flickr

For the past several decades, HIV and AIDS have dominated discussions and reporting about LGBT health. While HIV/AIDS continues to be relevant to this population, thorough coverage of health for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals must be much more comprehensive in examining other challenges they face.

Several takeaways from the Health Journalism 2016 session, “Beyond HIV/AIDS: Reporting on the LGBT Community,” can help reporters go beyond those issues to discover new stories and important trends. Two major themes emerged from the session that offer fertile ground for deeper reporting. Continue reading →

Resources for covering HIV/AIDS in the aging population

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Eileen Beal

About Eileen Beal

Eileen Beal, M.A., has been covering health care and aging since the late 1990s. She's written several health-related books. including "Age Well!" with geriatrician Robert Palmer, and her work has appeared in Aging Today, Arthritis Today,WebMD and other publications.

Aging Awareness Day. September 18th.Thanks to a variety of antiretroviral medications available, especially the widely used HAART combination therapy, those who contracted HIV/AIDS from the 1990s on and have been able to maintain drug compliance, are aging longer with the disease, something that is recognized with National HIV/AIDS and Aging Awareness Day each year on Sept. 18. Continue reading →

Health insurance discrimination persists for those with HIV, cancer and other conditions, despite ACA

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Joseph Burns

About Joseph Burns

Joseph Burns (@jburns18), a Massachusetts-based independent journalist, is AHCJ’s topic leader on health insurance. He welcomes questions and suggestions on insurance resources and tip sheets at joseph@healthjournalism.org.

Over the past two years, patient advocacy groups, researchers and consultants have said health insurers have discriminated against their members with high-cost conditions.

A number of journalists have covered these stories. The Marketplace’s Tim Fitzsimons reported in June that the federal Department of Health and Human Services was addressing complaints against insurers whose benefit programs were designed to drive away members with costly pre-existing conditions. Wes Venteicher of the Chicago Tribune reported on efforts by health insurer Coventry to make HIV treatments more affordable after patient advocates complained that costs for HIV drugs were too high. Continue reading →

Despite progress fighting HIV, most vulnerable still at risk #ahcj15

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Anna Gorman

About Anna Gorman

Anna Gorman (@AnnaGorman) is a senior correspondent with Kaiser Health News. She attended Health Journalism 2015 on an AHCJ-California Health Journalism Fellowship, which is supported by The California HealthCare Foundation.

HIV-panel

Pia Christensen/AHCJSharon Hillier, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, discusses the pre-exposure prophylaxis pill, or PrEP, which can help prevent HIV infection.

HIV prevention and treatment have undergone a revolution since the disease first appeared, but there are still barriers to reaching the most at-risk populations, HIV experts said during a session at Health Journalism 2015.

While HIV patients in 1985 had a life expectancy of at most 10 years, now they are living into old age and are more likely to die from smoking, said Brad Hare, director of HIV care and prevention at Kaiser Permanente San Francisco.

Researchers are working toward a cure and people without HIV can take a prevention pill to keep them from becoming infected. Continue reading →

Focus is on closing the gap, ending stigma for World AIDS Day 2014

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Kris Hickman

About Kris Hickman

Kris Hickman (@the_index_case) is a graduate research assistant for AHCJ, pursuing a master’s degree in public health. She has a bachelor's degree in anthropology, with a minor in journalism, from the University of Missouri. She spent two years in Zambia as an HIV/AIDS community education volunteer in the Peace Corps. She aspires to be an epidemiologist and science writer.

World AIDS Day. December 1.

AIDS.gov

Today is the 26th Annual World AIDS Day. This year, the theme for World AIDS Day is “Close The Gap,” with United Nations Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon setting a bold goal of ending AIDS by 2030.

According the World Health Organization, about 35 million people have HIV/AIDS worldwide. Sub-Saharan Africa is the most affected region, with approximately 70 percent of new infections worldwide occurring there. In the U.S., approximately 1.2 million people live with HIV − and an estimated one out of seven of those are not aware they are infected. Continue reading →

New OIG report: Medicare paid for HIV drugs for deceased beneficiaries

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Liz Seegert

About Liz Seegert

Liz Seegert (@lseegert), is AHCJ’s topic editor on aging. Her work has appeared in NextAvenue.com, Journal of Active Aging, Cancer Today, Kaiser Health News, the Connecticut Health I-Team and other outlets. She is a senior fellow at the Center for Health Policy and Media Engagement at George Washington University and co-produces the HealthCetera podcast.

A report released Friday by the Office of the Inspector General found that, under the Part D program, Medicare paid for HIV drugs for 150 dead recipients.

An analysis of Prescription Drug Event (PDE) records for HIV drugs in 2012 determined that CMS’s current practices allowed most of these payments to occur. Although CMS has processes in place that reject PDE records for drugs with dates of service more than 32 days after death, in some cases, claims that fell outside this window were paid. Most of these drugs were dispensed by retail pharmacies.  prescription-drugs

According to OIG, “Drugs that treat the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) can be a target for fraud, waste, and abuse, primarily because they can be very expensive.” The report points out, for example, that one common antiretroviral drug costs approximately $1,700 per month. HIV drugs accounted for one-quarter of one percent of all Part D drugs in 2012.

Continue reading →