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 "uninsured patients" ...
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Hospital Charity Gets Checkup
The story "looked at the level of charity care such hospitals provide to low-income and uninsured patients, along with the tax breaks they receive." They contrasted that with the "levels of charity care provided by for-profit and public hospitals."
Tags: hospitals; public health; healthcare; charity hospitals; uninsured patients; non-profit hospitals
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Non-Profit Hospitals
This investigation focuses on two non-profit hospitals, one in Mississippi and the other in Georgia. According to the mission of both these hospitals they are supposed to provide charitable treatment to uninsured patients. But instead they were filing law suits and trying to make money out of uninsured people in the low income bracket.
Tags: non-profits; non-profit hospitals; hospitals; St. Dominic Hospital; Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital; uninsured patients; charitable hospitals
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Twenty Years and Still Paying : Jeanette White Is Long Dead but Her Hospital Bill Lives On; Full Price: A Young Man, An Appendectomy and a $19,000 Bill Ms.Nix Confronts Harsh Facts of Medical Care Economics -- The Uninsured Are Billed More; Medical Seizures: Hospitals Try Extreme Measures to Collect Their Overdue Debts
The Journal reveals how America's uninsured are asked to pay much more for their health care than anyone else. This series puts the spotlight on a shockingly unfair billing system, revealing how hospitals bill those without coverage the highest rates, then relentlessly pursue these vulnerable patients using strong-arm tactics that includes lawsuits, wage garnishments, bank account seizures and even jail.
Tags: Medicare; Medicaid; Illinois Hospital Association; American Hospital Association; Quinton White; Champaign County-Illinois; Elizabeth Benjamin; Legal Aid Society; Yale-New Haven; Service Employees International Union
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The U.S spends more money on health care than any other country. But the nation's 44 million uninsured face a system of SECOND CLASS
The fact that U.S is the highest health care spender can be relegated to the backburner, says Consumer Reports. For, the condition of 44 million Americans not covered under health insurance poses bothering questions. CR conducted a 6-month investigation that included interviews with doctors, hospitals, clinics and health experts. The key finding being that these millions of uninsured Americans get second class health care, "if they get any at all".
Tags: health care; patients; physicians; insurance; doctors
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AIDS office has stumbled in meeting needs
The Virginian-Pilot reports that "Norfolk has one of the worst track records in the country for using federal money to care for low-income AIDS patients. Over the past four years, the city has failed to spend an average of nearly $1 million annually from Title 1 of the Ryan White CARE Act, which pays to treat uninsured people with the disease."
Tags: AIDS; Norfolk; Virginia; AIDS clinics; funding; AIDS patients; public health; healthcare; federal money; low-income AIDS patients; grants; Eastern Virginia Medical School; Ryan White Title 1 program
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Cheap Tricks
Young investigates the so-called "premium fraud." The story reports that many employers buy no workers comp insurance policies or buy policies but lower the cost of their premiums. As a result, when an accident occurs, state government, taxpayers and patients themselves pay the mounting medical bills. "To make matter worse, states often have multiple agencies and departments overseeing different parts of the workers comp system."
Tags: Uninsured Employers Fund; occupational safety; health care; fraud; insurance
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Rationed Care
The Star-Telegram looks at problems flooding the taxpayer-funded hospital system in Tarrant County, Texas. The three-part series reveals that unjustified income requirements have cut off uninsured residents from subsidized treatment. Patients have to be poorer than in other urban counties in the state in order to receive non-emergency care and prescription drugs at discount. Other findings include that funding is not reaching patient care, but is "rather being diverted to other, unnecessary items such as construction, renovation and acquisition of building space." Administrators have been slow to add basic services, and a shortage of doctors and supplies has severely hurt patient care.
Tags: insurance; neighborhood clinics; FOI requests; health care; federal funds; uninsured patients; Medicaid; income; poverty; welfare; pharmacies; EMS
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Crisis in care: Community health centers in rural America
The Post Dispatch reports on the problems of the small, federally funded and nonprofit community clinics designed for the needs of low-income uninsured patients. These clinics have become primary caregivers in rural areas, the story finds, as the number of uninsured in Missouri has soared since 1999. The article reveals that the centers themselves scramble for funding and qualified personnel, and many continue to operate only due to the services of some doctors and nurses working for free. Most doctors in the community clinics are immigrants because American doctors don't want to work in rural areas. The story depicts the dare needs of uninsured patients who - being unable to pay for doctor's visits - have neglected their illnesses for years.
Tags: immigrants; immigration; poverty; Medicaid; unemployment; health insurance; federal funds; doctors; Muslims
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Emergency
"San Francisco General Hospital was once a model for quality public health care. Now doctors and nurses who keep the hospital running warn that it's on the verge of collapse." Due to federal and state cuts, an increase in uninsured patients, lack of staff and "pressures brought on by managed care", the city's busiest hospital has began to downfall. Tali Woodward reports more on why the "Emergency Department is overburned."
Tags: hospitals; medicine; emergency; health care; doctors; clinics; insurance; funding
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The Cost of Living
Phoenix magazine's five-month investigation into how insured and uninsured patients are treated differently in Arizona hospitals proves that many uninsured patients are often charged thousands more and discharged earlier than patients with insurance.
Tags: Insurance; Health Care; Hospitals; HMOs