Civilian contractors must fight for care from insurers

"Civilian workers who suffered devastating injuries while supporting the U.S. war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan have come home to a grinding battle for basic medical care, artificial limbs, psychological counseling and other services," according to a joint investigation by ABC News, the Los Angeles Times and ProPublica. The report says serious claims are routinely denied by the the taxpayer-funded policies held by civilian contractors while companies like American International Group (AIG) have turned hundreds of millions of dollars in profit on these policies.

An Associated Press investigation found that many diabetics are reducing or forgoing doctor visits, medications and testing due to financial pressures. Business writer Linda A. Johnson reports that, “People with other health problems also are cutting back on care amid the recession, but diabetics who don't closely monitor and control the chronic disease risk particularly dire complications: amputations, vision loss, stroke — even death.”

Medication errors raise questions about patient safety at a New Jersey psychiatric hospital, according to an Asbury Park Press report by Jean Mikle.  A review of hundreds of pages of Ancora medication safety and error reports by the Press found troubling patterns of mistakes and omissions at the facility, which has about 600 patients. The story includes Web visualization tools based on the records used in the reporting.

A two-part series in The Miami Herald explains how Florida storefront clinics exploit the market for narcotic painkillers.  Scott Hiassen reports, "Experts blame these clinics for a startling rise in prescription-drug overdose deaths in Florida, including a 107 percent jump in oxycodone deaths in two years....Yet, regulators and police can't control the problem -- handcuffed, they say, by tepid Florida laws that allow these clinics to open in-house pharmacies and sell drugs directly to clients walking in off the street, even from far-away states."

Matthew Hendrickson wrote a three-part series showing how Chicago children continue to be harmed by lead poisoning at alarming rates because of bureaucratic missteps — from kids being screened late to frustrated inspectors not having correct street addresses when tracking down those most at risk. Hendrickson also tested soil samples and found troubling amounts of lead on playgrounds. He wrote the series while a student at Columbia College Chicago and under the supervision of Chicago Tribune investigative reporter Sam Roe.

A 10-month investigation by producer Lauren Sweeney and reporter Melissa Yeager at WINK-Fort Meyers helped change policy at Florida's Department of Juvenile Justice.  A worker at a juvenile justice center for kids with drug abuse and mental problems blew the whistle on his supervisor for obtaining a prescription for powerful painkillers from the staff doctor. Two separate agencies investigated and substantiated the claim, but the supervisor was not reprimanded or criminally charged because the Department of Juvenile Justice had no policy prohibiting his actions. After the Call For Action investigation, the Department of Juvenile Justice wrote a new policy blocking employees from utilizing professional staff for personal reasons.

Sharon Coolidge of the Cincinnati Enquirer reports that a "review of city health records found that 55 of the 268 properties identified as having lead hazards have been on the city's books since before 1999. Yet the properties have not been cleaned and the owners have not been prosecuted." Families have continued to move into these properties without proper warning or safety instruction.  City records reflecting the number of children living in these properties were found to be inaccurate.

Mark Benjamin and Michael de Yoanna of Salon.com have launched "Coming Home," a weeklong series that "focuses on preventable deaths at Fort Carson, a U.S. Army post in Colorado, among troops who have returned from combat tours in Iraq." The series comes soon after the U.S. Army announced that January showed the highest soldier suicide rate in nearly 30 years. The first installment focuses on Army Pvt. Adam Lieberman who attempted suicide after spending a year in Iraq.

Internal Food and Drug Administration documents indicate that an FDA official overruled agency scientists and approved the sale of an imaging device for breast cancer after receiving a phone call from a Connecticut congressman. The legislator’s call and its effect on what is supposed to be a science-based approval process is only one of many of accusations in documents obtained by The New York Times regarding disputes within the Food and Drug Administration's office of device evaluation.

An eight-month investigation by Fred Schulte and James Drew of The Baltimore Sun found that over the past five years some of Maryland's 46 nonprofit hospitals have received millions of surplus dollars from the government even as they sued tens of thousands of patients over unpaid bills. Many of these suits have been filed against patients in the poorest areas of the state.