KFF Overall health News’ “Diagnosis: Debt” Collection Wins Major Electronic Media Honor from the Countrywide Institute for Well being Care Management (NIHCM) Foundation

KFF Wellness Information has taken prime honors in the Countrywide Institute for Wellness Treatment Administration (NIHCM) Foundation’s 2023 Awards in Journalism and Exploration for its sequence “Diagnosis: Credit card debt.” The multifaceted reporting partnership among KFF Health and fitness Information, NPR, and CBS News explores the scale, impression, and leads to of clinical credit card debt in The united states.

“Diagnosis: Debt” received first place in the electronic media category, which provided a lot more than 70 entries from information companies which includes The Washington Submit, ProPublica, and NBC News. Judges cited the collection for its effective and persuasive use of storytelling, graphics, and original data to illustrate a single of the most hard problems impacting patients today.

“Diagnosis: Debt” examined the tales powering the a lot more than 100 million persons in America who have been pushed into financial debt by the nation’s overall health treatment technique, revealing the epidemic of professional medical financial debt that has come to be a defining attribute of the American system. In personal, multimedia tales, “Diagnosis: Debt” documented the struggling and sacrifices this stress forces on people and their people.

“This job is at the coronary heart of our mission at KFF Wellness Information: in-depth journalism that appears to be at the effect of the well being technique on folks,” reported KFF President and CEO Drew Altman, founding publisher of KFF Wellbeing Information.

The task drew on a nationwide poll, the “KFF Overall health Care Debt Survey,” made and analyzed by KFF’s journalists and community belief scientists, as perfectly as new investigation into personal debt and healthcare facility finances, and unique investigations by reporters. The investigations incorporated a assessment of thousands of court records to expose credit card debt assortment by nursing homes and an assessment of medical center contracts attained by way of community records requests. The most formidable effort and hard work reflected a thorough examination of billing and collection procedures at hundreds of U.S. hospitals, lots of of which resisted community disclosures. That reporting educated an interactive info visualization that permits visitors to see the practices of hospitals around them.

The yearlong challenge was led by Noam N. Levey, a senior correspondent at KFF Health and fitness News, and his editor, Kelly Johnson, and bundled function by Aneri Pattani, a correspondent at KFF Well being News Yuki Noguchi, a correspondent on the Science Desk at NPR Anna Werner, a customer investigative national correspondent for CBS News Juweek Adolphe, a world wide web developer and designer Bram Sable-Smith, a Midwest correspondent at KFF Wellness Information Megan Kalata, a author at KFF Health and fitness News and Terry Byrne, copy main at KFF Wellness Information. KFF Wellbeing Information proceeds to take a look at the subject.

Clinical credit card debt has also been a target of KFF’s current policy investigation perform, like assets these kinds of as “The Stress of Medical Financial debt in the United States,” “Americans’ Issues with Overall health Treatment Expenses,” and “Could Customer Support Be Valuable to Individuals Struggling with Professional medical Credit card debt?”