In Florida's Manatee County, the lack of dental care was creating a crisis for children, and the chief witnesses were school nurses. In response, the county's health and education leaders have started working together to get kids into the dental chair.
Keriana Carll cries in pain nearly every day. Her mouth hurts. The 4-year-old has such severe dental disease that she had to get her front tooth pulled. But no dentist in Florida's Sarasota or Manatee County was willing to treat her.
In covering the health care workforce beat, just reporting a simple number detailing the size of provider shortages or surpluses can be very misleading, explains researcher Susan Skillman in this tip sheet.
Only two of 103 listings were accurate, according to a Sarasota Herald-Tribune survey.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott vetoed a universally-supported bill to bring dentists to underserved communities last year, despite the strong need for more dental care providers.
Local communities and the federal government prioritize dental care, but Florida's state agencies don't have much to offer, according to a special series in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
In Florida dental practices serving lots of Medicaid patients, parents are often barred from appointments.
A long-awaited decision by regulators appears to be imminent on the proposed merger between Cottage Health and Sansum Clinic, which has the largest physician practice in the area with 23 outpatient sites spanning Santa Maria to Santa Barbara.
“We expected to find a larger difference between plans on and off the exchange,” said researcher Simon Haeder. “In both cases, it was very unlikely to get an appointment.”
The secretive world of pharmaceutical pricing is mired in opacity. To investigate how pricey drugs are impacting California’s budget, reporter Pauline Bartolone found she had to be creative, flexible and persistent in her data sleuthing.
