1. Provide the title of your story or series and the names of the journalists involved.
Medical Waste
Credits: Elizabeth Cohen, Senior Medical Correspondent, Roni Selig, Sr Executive Producer and Director, Health, Wellness and Medical Unit Jennifer Bixler, Executive Producer Sabriya Rice and John Bonifield, Producers Photojournalist: Michael Calloway, Bob Crowley, Mark Biello Editor: Jennifer Gregg, Joe Stern, Ed Danko
2. List date(s) this work was published or aired.
04/26- 05/30/2010
3. Provide a brief synopsis of the story or stories, including any significant findings.
Five thousand dollars for disposable gloves? Getting charged for a surgery you never had? An unnecessary C-section? If you don't want to get ripped off, you have to learn how to be a smart medical shopper. Elizabeth Cohen takes us through a maze of waste that boggles the mind.
4. Explain types of documents, data or Internet resources used. Were FOI or public records act requests required? How did this affect the work?
We based our reporting off a study that found more than $1-trillion dollars in health care spending was being spent wastefully. To investigate specific cases of "medical waste," we examined medical bills, pointing out examples of costly billing errors. We culled through online hospital pricing data, to showcase how sometimes the same procedure can cost wildly more at one hospital and considerably less at another. We did not FOI or ask for additional public record requests.
5. Explain types of human sources used.
We interviewed medical billing advocates, who daily spend their time helping patients solve expensive, sometimes bogus, billing charges. And we talked with health care professionals who are leading the charge to reduce expensive, excessive procedures in their hospitals.
6. Results (if any).
n/a
7. Follow-up (if any). Have you run a correction or clarification on the report or has anyone come forward to challenge its accuracy? If so, please explain.
n/a
8. Advice to other journalists planning a similar story or project.
Hospital pricing is complex. To make it uncomplicated for your readers or viewers, reach out to leaders in the field for a quick primer to help get your started with your reporting. What a hospital charges and what it eventually gets paid are not always one in the same. Hospital pricing is negotiated between hospitals and insurance companies. Most people have come across at least one medical bill in their life, so help them relate to the topic with specific examples of wasteful spending.