The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "Physician Health Services" ...
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FDA and Drug Safety
A CBS investigative series reports on different aspects of dangerous medicine. Some of the reports reveal that the managed care has gone out of control. "Health insurance giants ... are harming patients by denying crucial medical care, illegally denying and delaying claims, and using unfair and deceptive trade practices." Insurers also "downcode" doctors' claims - that is, change them to services that pay less or nothing at all. Other stories look at the risks posed by drug studies and the lack of enough oversight from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). One of the reports tells how a healthy baby died after being enrolled in a study of Propulsid, a heartburn drug that turned out to be dangerous and has been repeatedly rejected by the FDA for pediatric use. The series also examine cases of prescription drugs that should have never been sold, and concludes that FDA has become too close to the pharmaceutical industry. A major finding is that pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. have huge financial incentives to keep dangerous drugs on the market at the cost of patients' deaths and injuries.
Tags: TAPE; TRANSCRIPT; medicine; HMOs; health care; patients; Cigna; Oxford; Connecticare; Aetna; Physician Health Services; Anthem Bule Cross/Blue Shield; Rezulin; Pfeizer; Warner Lambert
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A Critical Condition
Delaware Today examines the growing problem with long emergency-visits waits in the state. The story finds that critical-care cases have increased, but "hospitals are unable to keep up with demands for space, staff and services due to decreases in federal funding." The article looks at the emergency rooms in Nanticoke Memorial Hospital, St. Francis hospital, Beebe hospital, and Christiana Care, and finds that all of them need to be expanded.
Tags: medicine; health care; trauma; patients; surgeons; hospitals; nurses; doctors; physicians; response time; Delaware Healthcare Association
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Trinity Hospice investigation
Tulsa World investigated multiple shortcomings in the health care of dying people, provided by Trinity Hospice. The company, which operates in Oklahoma, Louisiana, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Texas, Georgia, Arizona, Colorado and Kansas, has been accused of limiting medical care as a way to increase profits. In the words of one of the main sources cited in the story, "Trinity's patient care coordinators were supposed to keep costs down to $50 per day. Meanwhile the hospice was billing Medicare $90 per day..." The reporters revealed that this for-profit hospice, paid by the government, had "often failed to follow physicians' orders, allowed bed sores to worsen and failed to provide a variety of services." The story listed specific examples of discrepancies between what Medicare required and what regulators found at Trinity operations. These revealed missing criminal history checks in eight of ten personnel files, as well as failures to provide medicines for dying patients and to update plans of care.
Tags: Medicare; Health Care Financing Administration; hospitals; government; reimbursement; nursing homes; nurses; insurance
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The Medicaid HMO Game
The Sun-Sentinel investigates how HMOs for the poor often fail to deliver medical care the state paid them to provide while using the money to award HMO executives. The report also looks at how some HMOs reported extremely low use of vital health care services such as physician and hospital care in medical peer review records. (Nov. 26 - 29, 1995)
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Fee For Service: Caremark Faces Heat for Paying Doctors Who Sent It Patients
The Wall Street Journal reports that "When Bruce A. Marguilis left the home-health-care business last year, the physician was a millionaire many times over. But not from practicing medicine. The internist was a kind of super-salesman for Caremark International Inc., the U.S. leader in home intravenous therapy.... But now Dr. Margulis is a prime focus of a broad federal investigation into alleged kickbacks by Caremark and other health-care companies to doctors for patient referrals..."
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No title (id: 9660)
Scripps Howard News Service exposed massive problems in the home health care industry, including undertrained staff, kickbacks to physicians who prescribe home health care and overcharging, May - December 1993.
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No title (id: 9237)
Akron Beacon Journal reveals that Medicaid, while reputed to be woefully inadequate in its payments, is a source of enormous profit for many physicians and nursing home owners; finds that state watchdog agencies ask few questions about the quality of service provided, nor do they ask how much profit is enough for health care that is heavily reliant on government subsidy, 1992.
Tags: OH Zajac