December 19, 2011, 3:01 PM
Darlene Courtois describes herself as overweight, not emaciated, so she was surprised to learn that her hospital billed Medicare for treating her for kwashiorkor, a dangerous form of malnutrition.
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December 16, 2011, 12:41 AM
Stephen K. Doig’s specialty is the analysis of large government datasets, a technique called precision journalism, which uses software to reveal patterns.
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December 16, 2011, 12:12 AM
To report this story, California Watch relied on Medicare data, hospital records and, critically, government billing records normally kept secret.
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December 16, 2011, 12:09 AM
Darlene Courtois had never heard of kwashiorkor, a dangerous form of malnutrition, but records show her hospital billed Medicare for treating the condition anyway.
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Daily Report:
December 16, 2011, 12:08 AM
Journalists find stories in all sorts of places. I have spent much of my journalism career, both in newsrooms and classrooms, finding stories in data. That’s how I found myself crunching data for California Watch, a nonprofit investigative news operation that is part of the Center for...
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December 16, 2011, 12:08 AM
Hospitals have a lot of discretion when deciding what to include in their bills to Medicare, which in 2010 paid out more than $500 billion to health providers.
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March 17, 2011, 12:05 AM
Citing a California Watch story, a state Senate leader has called for a public health investigation into "alarming" malnutrition rates among Medicare patients at the Prime Healthcare hospital chain. Sen. Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina, who is chair of the Senate Health Committee, says...
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February 19, 2011, 4:05 PM
Diagnosing patients with certain types of malnutrition and a rare form called kwashiorkor can help earn bonus payments for hospitals billing for Medicare.
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February 19, 2011, 4:05 PM
Patients covered by Medicare do not tend to see the diagnostic codes that form the basis for government payment to hospitals. Here's how it works.
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February 19, 2011, 4:05 PM
California Watch used public records to compare how frequently California hospitals diagnose malnutrition among older patients when their care is paid for by the federal Medicare system.
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