A federal law forbids hospitals from simply kicking their patients to the curb, a practice called patient dumping. Hospitals are required to treat patients who arrive at the ER. Here's how to check whether hospitals in your coverage area are violating the rules.
Even with all the changes in the health care landscape, there are still more not-for-profit hospitals in the U.S. than profit-driven organizations or government-run hospitals. Finding out information isn't always easy, but using IRS 990 forms can offer a powerful window into their workings.
At the Native American Health Center in East Oakland, health reform has pushed clinic staff to experiment with new ways of delivering care. But changes in the way care is reimbursed and increased competition for patients still leaves clinic leaders nervous about longterm survival.
A new study of kids in the Los Angeles basin found that as air quality “improved dramatically” in recent years, so did the capacity of children's lungs. The study's attributes the gains to more stringent emissions standards. But can the air quality gains continue amid a resurgent economy?
Last year marked a turning point for people living with chronic hep C and public radio reporter Kristin Gourlay led the way in documenting the bittersweet promise of new treatments. In this post, she shares how she reported the series and the resources she found invaluable.
Doctors usually train in a specialty, but they don’t have to practice in that specialty. And, in most states, they don’t have to tell you how they trained before they treat you. Records from medical specialty boards can help reporters figure out if doctors are board-certified and in which field.
Medicare made more than $583 billion in payments in 2013. But, for one of the fastest rising areas of Medicare spending, the agency has no way of knowing whether all that money was spent wisely.
An innovative program allows elderly residents to remain in their own homes, rather than in a nursing home. At AltaMed's El Monte clinic, a 14-member interdisciplinary team coordinates each senior patient’s care, and vulnerable seniors are kept as busy and engaged as possible.
“Health care is what happens when things go wrong,” Dr. Anthony Iton says. “Health care doesn’t actually make you healthy — it prevents you from deteriorating rapidly.” The broader forces that really shape health, he argues, are what journalists and policymakers should really be focusing on.
The 2015 California Health Journalism Fellowship kicked off with a wide-ranging conversation between Gerald Kominski of UCLA's Center for Health Policy Research and Anna Gorman of Kaiser Health News on the past and future of health reform.
