I don't remember how the subject came up, but at one point in a conversation with a mover and shaker in Sioux Falls, we started talking about hospital helicopters.

Sioux Falls is home to two hospital systems. Each system has smaller hospitals in South Dakota, as well as other states in the Upper Great Plains. The Mother Ship hospitals in Sioux Falls have medical helicopters, and it's pretty common to see them flying around.

The mover and shaker told me about a meeting he had with executives at one of the systems. During the meeting, a helicopter started ...

Our newspaper’s analysis of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) data revealed that 131 providers in the Atlanta metropolitan area claimed a UPS Store mailbox as their medical office.

In turns out, Atlanta medical providers were not conducting medical procedures in mailboxes. Most of these providers filled out the federal paperwork incorrectly.  But dozens of others committed fraud by  using the UPS Store mailboxes as purported real offices. With a sham provider number and a UPS Store address, they could also provide what looked like a real physician’s approval for unnecessary or non-existent medical services and equipment ...

When I began covering health for The Bakersfield Californian, I frequently heard sources mention the high number of foreign-trained doctors serving the Central Valley.  So many of our county’s physicians, they said, had attended medical school overseas. Even within our newsroom, colleagues commented about their personal experience seeing international medical graduates for almost all of their medical care. We discussed how to cover a topic that seemed ripe for exploration – and especially relevant given the overall doctor shortage and recruiting challenges present in the valley – but too intangible to report in any substantial way.

Before we could do anything ...

In the past few years, pharmaceutical companies have been required under federal law to publicly disclose their payments to physician consultants and speakers, opening up a whole new avenue for journalists, including the writers of the Connecticut Health I-Team.

Each time another pharmaceutical company begins posting its payment disclosure data online -- often in a hard-to-find link on its website -- I've taken a look through, to check on Connecticut doctors. As in most other states, hundreds of doctors here earn thousands of dollars to promote drugs marketed by pharmaceutical companies including Pfizer, Cephalon, Eli Lilly, Janssen.

In the spring, I ...

I think most people are afraid of a hospital bill that bankrupts them. It’s why I pay more for a medical insurance plan with a cap on out-of-pocket costs and, more significantly, it’s one reason why so many uninsured or underinsured consumers avoid hospitals as long as they can.

Beyond that fear, there’s a public interest in minimizing the number of huge hospital bills. They cause insurance premiums to rise as costs are spread. They cause hospital charges for everyone to increase when uninsured patients don’t pay. And they deplete public treasuries as many large bills ...

On Thursday, The Charlotte Observer and the News & Observer in Raleigh won bronze in the Barlett & Steele Awards for Investigative Business Journalism, funded by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism, for their series "Prognosis: Profits," in which the reporters dissected the finances of large healthcare institutions and discovered inflated prices, lawsuits against thousands of needy patients and minimal charity care to the poor and uninsured -- all practiced contradicting the core missions of the hospitals.

• The Charlotte Observer's stories: www.charlotteobserver.com/hospitals
• The News & Observer's stories: www.newsobserver.com/prognosisprofits

Ames Alexander and Karen Garloch ...

Working on a project about health care systems? About to start one? Here are some resources to help:

The Association of Health Care Journalists is offering Reporting Fellowships on Health Care Performance, a yearlong program that funds reporting on health care systems in the United States. The program is designed for mid-career journalists, who continue their regular jobs and pursue the project with the support of their newsroom, which would publish the final product.

The fellowship offers up to $4,000 for field visits, data and research. Fellows also get guidance through AHCJ seminars, conferences and email consultations, as well ...

By Pamela Cyran
@CyranStar

Investigating vulnerable populations such as the elderly, mentally disabled, and even children, is extremely taxing. Many times it’s finding the story in the first place that’s troubling. Proving the story is another task.

In many cases these victims can’t speak for themselves. Maybe they have no family or family are hesitant to criticize people who’ve been taking care of their loved ones. Sometimes victims can’t be counted as reliable witnesses to what they’ve gone through.

These victims have no voice and that’s what makes this job important, panelists explained ...

Throughout our two-year rolling investigation into Parkland Memorial Hospital, plenty of people were more than willing to tell us that the legendary Dallas County hospital was providing top-notch care.

But what proved difficult was actually verifying the accuracy of such claims. Hospital officials repeatedly balked at releasing data that would allow the comparison of Parkland against peers in key areas.

Our investigation centered primarily on patient safety and issues of resident supervision by doctors from Parkland’s academic partner, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. We used as case studies the stories of people like Jessie Mae Ned, a ...

New York Times reporter Barry Meier knew lawsuits against the manufacturers of all-metal artificial hips were on the rise. But it wasn’t until I queried a balky Food and Drug Administration database that he was able to confirm that all-metal hip implants were quickly becoming the biggest and costliest medical implant problem since Medtronic recalled a widely used heart device in 2007.

The FDA collects voluntary reports from patients, health care providers and medical device manufacturers about problems experienced with specific devices. The federal agency compiles the reports of deaths, injuries and product malfunctions in a database known as ...