Tracking medical debt, a major cause of personal bankruptcy

Medical debt is a significant issue for well over half of Americans, according to the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. It may be the leading cause of personal bankruptcy. In this workshop we’ll discuss sources, strategies, and best practices for reporting on medical debt. This webinar is part of a series produced by AHCJ and IRE that will equip you with the tools you need to tell the story of the big business of health care.

Speakers: Anissa Durham, Word In Black; Noam N. Levey, KFF Health News

Anissa Durham is the health data reporter at Word In Black, where she reports on health care inequities and mental health in the Black community. Prior to working at Word In Black, she was a general assignment reporter at inewsource and has written for The San Diego Union Tribune, PBS SoCal, The Objective, and Voice of San Diego. Anissa has a bachelor's degree from National University. In 2024, she produced Life or Debt, a 3-part drug price series which explores the ways Black American's living with chronic disease are forced to manage an expensive health care system. And in 2023, she produced the reporting series Lost Innocence: The Adultification of Black Children as a fellow with the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism and Fact or Fiction: Navigating Health Misinformation.

Noam N. Levey is a Washington, D.C.,-based senior correspondent for KFF Health News, where he is currently producing “Diagnosis: Debt,” a multi-part project on medical debt in the U.S. in collaboration with NPR and CBS News. Noam joined KFF Health News in 2021 after 17 years at the Los Angeles Times, the last 12 as the paper’s national healthcare reporter based in Washington. He has reported on healthcare issues from more than three dozen states and four continents and won numerous honors, including a Loeb award and two NIHCM awards, one in 2020 for his series “Inside America’s High-Deductible Revolution” and one in 2023 for “Diagnosis: Debt.” Noam has also been published in Health Affairs, JAMA and Milbank Quarterly. He started his career at newspapers in Duluth, Minn., Montgomery, Ala., and the United Arab Emirates. Prior to the LA Times, Noam was an investigative reporter for the San Jose Mercury News. Noam has a degree in History and Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University.

The series is free for all journalists, thanks to the generous support of the NIHCM Foundation.

You will not purchase a ticket for this webinar. Follow the link above.