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 "medical specialists" ...
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Thanks for Nothing: How Specialist Town Won a Purple Heart and Lost His Benefits; Specialist Town Takes His Case To Washington
This two part series shows how military doctors purposefully misdiagnose patients as being ill before joining the Army, in order to help the military escape paying for disability and medical benefits. This scam takes advantage of an obscure discharge regulation that allows the Army to discharge soldiers because of Personality Disorder; doctors often determine that soldiers discharged under this regulation had the personality disorder before joining the service. In the last six years, more than 22 thousand soldiers were discharged with personality disorder, which saved the Army more than $12 billion in disability and medical care. Doctors admitted to being pressured into making these false diagnoses.
Tags: war; military; mental illness; Chapter 5-13 separation; Iraq
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Betrayed
A former health inspector and environmental health specialist is now permanently disabled because of his exposure to toxic mold at his workplace, the Southern Nevada Health District's Environmental Health Wing, and he's not the only worker affected. Although his employer knew the problem existed (and was serious, as they are the agency that investigates and shuts down mold-infected sites) they fought correcting the situation, refused to re-locate infected workers, and contested their disability claims.
Tags: Mold; Air quality; Southern Nevada Health District; Harry Reid Center for Environmental Studies at UNLV; rashes; Keck School of Medicine Environmental Sciences Laboratory at USC; Public Employees Retirement System of Nevada; U.S. Department of Labor Family and Medical Leave Act; Dan Pauluk; Apergillus; Stachybotrys; Yellow Rain; Aflatoxin; Saddam Hussein; Biological Weapons
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At KCPL Doctors say the darnedest things to injured workers. Get to work!
This story details an employee's experience with Kansas City Power and Light after getting injured on the job. KCPL is not required to pay specialists so care of injured workers unless a company-approved doctor refers a patient to the specialists, and injured workers don't feel the company has their best interests in mind. For example, KCPL sent this employee to a doctor who was on probation for alcohol abuse during his treatment, and had a malpractice lawsuit against him.
Tags: Kansas City Power and Light; KU Medical Center; KCPL; union; workers compensation; International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; Occupational Health Services; Missouri State Board of Registration for the Healing Arts
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Boutique Medicine: For the right price, these doctors treat patients as precious. Their 'consultancy' signals rise of a system critics say favors the wealthy. Practicing HMO-avoidance.
This story explains how the, "...Seattle Medical Associates is an unusual medical consultancy, where people pay for a doctor's know-how. For a range of fees, patients get unlimited access to a doctor they know who will guide them through the maze of hospitals and medical specialists they may encounter if they do get sick."
Tags: doctors; Seattle Medical Associates; medicine; doctor; doctor on call; medical specialists; hospitals; medical specialists
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Cruel and Unusual: Shoddy Medical Care at Carswell's Prison Hospital Turns Women's Punishment into Torture
The FW Weekly report about "medical treatment of female inmates at the Federal Medical Center Carswell, located just outside Fort Worth. ... (the) investigation found a pattern of medical treatment there that is extremely poor, capricious and life threatening. Procedures or referrals to outside specialists are routinely denied until the women's conditions have worsened dramatically. Wrong diagnoses by Physician Assistants are routine. Deaths have occurred following denials of medical care."
Tags: FOIA Bureau of Prisons prisoners health care facilities discrimination
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Doctors Credentials
There's a lot of information about bad doctors scattered around county courthouses, state regulatory offices and professional associations. There is even a federal databank that compiles the results of medical malpractice lawsuits and disciplinary actions before state agencies and hospital boards. But access to the federal databank is tightly restricted, largely through the efforts of the American Medical Association. It is not available to the people who need it most. As a result of these restrictions, people looking for a family doctor or for a specialist have no way to tell which doctors have been sued or disciplined for poor medical practice.
Tags: TAPE
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Bones of Contention
Chiropractors make up this country's third largest medical profession (after physicians and dentists) and are licensed to practice without supervision or referral from medical doctors in every state. Health magazine looks at the growth of this profession and compares it to other specialists. (July/August 1993)
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Death Sentence
Milwaukee magazine looks at the cases of woman whose pap smears had been repeatedly misinterpreted by Chem-Bio Corp, an Oak Creek medical lab. "Interviews and court records suggest that what happened to Dolores Geary and Karin Smith wasn't the result of simple mistakes. Instead, say their lawyers and survivors, both women died as a result of repeated and flagrant missteps by the laboratory and the doctors to whom they had entrusted their health and lives."
Tags: Gynecologists Cervical cancer Family Health Plan HMO specialists referrals managed health care
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No title (id: 10661)
News 12 Long Island uncovered secret deals, hidden conflicts of interest and "kickbacks" yet to be outlawed in New York HMOs. News 12 proved 11 of Long Island's 12 health maintenance organizations use a variety of financial incentives to influence the medical decisions of doctors. Some HMOs covertly pay doctors thousands of dollars in bonuses for keeping patients away from tests, specialists and hospitals, 1994.
Tags: NY Lagerkvist CHA HMOs: Profits vs. Patients; tape 64 pgs.