Head’s up on health-care special report

Posted on February 18, 2009 by Don Miller

For the next few days, I’m going to be touting the first investigative series the Sentinel has published in the past few years. The subject is health care — more specificially, the alarming lack of primary care doctors for the elderly, especially Medicare patients,  and where this has taken people in their search for help. The series begins Friday and runs through Sunday.

The series is a joint project with the University of Southern California-based Center for California Health Care Journalism, which approached the Sentinel some months ago about undertaking a major health-care project.

It took some reporting time to find where we all wanted to go with this, and the Center’s team of editor, reporter and photographer worked closely with our team in putting together a series of stories that, in my reading, make a strong case that the local situation may soon become a national story.

The title of the series is “Collision in Care: Santa Cruz County’s Looming Doctor Crisis.” I’ll write more tomorrow about the stories and multimedia that will start appearing Friday on Day One.

Bonus link: As I’ve been writing about recently, newspapers can still make a difference. Perhaps this series will help make that case. And here’s a piece from the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board, after the paper broke the story that Illinois Sen. Roland Burris apparently lied when he said he hadn’t talked to anyone in the camp of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich about campaign contributions before the governor appointed him to President Barack Obama’s Senate seat.

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • Sphinn
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Mixx
  • Google Bookmarks

About Don Miller

Don Miller is the Editor of the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
This entry was posted in Journalism, Local news. Bookmark the permalink.
  • RobtA

    Should be an interesting series of articles. I have something to compare it to: The Florida retiree economy, which is largely based on medical care.

  • disabuser

    I too look forward to the series. I read that the California HealthCare Foundation, which I believe was an entity created by the conversion of non-profit health insurance into profit companies, is funding the Center for California Health Care Journalism. I believe a huge foundation endowment was created. They call this “explanatory journalism.” And I hope it does that well, giving people an accurate view of what are often complex realities. The California HealthCare Foundation has itself published a report that seems like it might be the basis of the series called “Geography Is Destiny: Differences in Health Care Among Medicare Beneficiaries in the United States and California.”

  • RobtA

    My head’s up. Do the rest of you have your heads up?

  • http://www.cournalist.com Frank

    Ouch! First investigative piece in a few years. Sounds like too little too late.

  • http://cournalist.com/2009/02/20/media-dinosaurs-continue-death-cry/ Media Dinosaurs Continue Death Cry : the COURNALIST

    [...] slashed its editorial staff. Because of these cutbacks, Editor Don Miller recently found himself trumpeting the paper’s first investigative piece “in a few [...]

  • Nanette M. Dettlaff

    I am 69+ yr. of age; I have medicare-based insurance with AARP United health care options, as full supplemental insurance.

    When I was diagnosed with ‘narrow-angle glaucoma’ I was referred to Sutter Dr. Nyugen, received laser surgery under acceptance of medicare and above supplemental insurance.

    When I asked to be placed with a primary care physician with Sutter, to keep medical records together, I was refused on the basis that they were taking no more medicare-based patients.

    So, now, having NO primary care physician, I contacted NICAP & SC medical referral service, only to find that of the physicians accepting new patients, NONE of them accepted medicare-based patients….even tho the ‘specialist’ did and was paid…..SIGH

    Years ago, I attempted, before Medicare & insurance to be a ‘cash paying’ patient, and was also refused.

    SO, while healthy now, I am unable to gain access to a PC physician in my county….but if I have/develop a serious problem, of course the specialists will be happy to charge me to regain health, without allowing me the access to diagnostic preventative medicine which would have avoided it!

    Another issue, eyes and teeth are not considered part of the body! What a STUPID idea to part out the body!!!!

    Thanks for any help you can give….can I get a physician who has not taken the hypocritic oath?

  • It takes 6 months to see a specialist

    I am glad Don Miller is writing an investigative report on health-care, and I hope the focus is on health-care in Santa Cruz County. I feel that it’s difficult for any new patients, including medicare patients and the elderly, to get into the Santa Cruz Medical Foundation health-care system, especially to see specialists. Out of state referrals are of little use; Referrals from Primary Care Providers within the system are the only referrals that the foundation will accept to schedule a new patient appointment with a specialist. If a patient has a referral from a doctor that’s not in the system, they have to get an appointment with a PCP within the foundation before he/she is allowed to schedule an appointment with a specialist regardless of whether one’s insurance requires the referral or not. Such rules make it very tedious to receive health-care, and make treating an illness all the more frustrating.

blog comments powered by Disqus