List date(s) this work was published or aired.
Nov-12
Provide a brief synopsis of the story or stories, including any significant findings.
A growing number of health care services are being outsourced not only to domestic companies but also to those based overseas. The process frequently is called “offshoring.” These services range from coding and billing to patient lab results, documentation, eligibility determination, ICU (intensive care unit) monitoring, and front office services. What does this mean for physical therapists, their patients, and the health care system?
Explain types of documents, data or Internet resources used. Were FOI or public records act requests required? How did this affect the work?
A large number of studies, reports, research documents, and other material were uses. Most, however, dealt exclusive with physicians and medicine, not with physical therapists and rehabilitation.
Explain types of human sources used.
Physical therapists, owners of foreign-based companies, researchers who follow the subject of offshoring, and others were interviewed.
Results:
The article generated positive feedback from physical therapists and some debate and discussion on the benefits and drawbacks of offshoring.
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.
No corrections or clarifications were necessary.
Advice to other journalists planning a similar story or project.
This was a complicated story, dealing with sensitive health care topics, practices that could (and have) produced both positive and negative outcomes, business and financial issues both domestic and international, and more. We ended up with enough material to have written an article easily twice the length of the published piece. One challenge was to present a relatively unbiased article when most of the players had strong feelings about the topic. Another was to take a number of complex topics and present them in an understandable fashion without unnecessarily “dummying them down.” What worked for us was taking it slowly and carefully, and paying particular attention to editing for clarity. Close internal review of the drafts helped us strike the best balance between benefits and drawbacks of offshoring. We also found a number of unexpected angles that we weren’t able to cover–due both to space and to the focus of our article. Among them: A trend among states and other government entities to offshore their tasks. A link between venture capitalists and the offshoring movement. Conflicting understandings and opinions regarding the extent to which offshoring is (or can be) regulated by U.S. agencies. All these seem to offer interesting prospects for future articles.