By Kirstin Heinle
Student Writer
The Center for California Health Care Journalism — funded by the California HealthCare Foundation and spearheaded by journalism professor Michael Parks (pictured) and USC Annenberg — recently partnered with the Santa Cruz Sentinel and published a three-day series called “Collision in Care” about the Medicare crisis in Santa Cruz.
Through detailed articles, intimate photos and moving multimedia presentations, “Collision in Care” reveals the difficulty senior citizens with Medicare in Santa Cruz County have finding a primary healthcare physician.
One piece tells the story of Gladys Man, a colorful 83-year old woman who is covered by Medicare, yet cannot find any primary care physicians in the area that will accept her.
Man struggles with arthritis, chronic pain, chemical sensitivities, emphysema, heart failure and osteoporosis. For the last year, out of desperation, she has turned to the city’s Planned Parenthood for her primary care. Man is one of many senior citizens and disabled people seeking help from Planned Parenthood, a community clinic created for family planning and women’s health.
Other pieces in “Collision in Care” discuss how lower Medicare reimbursements plague county doctors, choosing Medicare coverage can be tricky, care for county's elderly has reached a tipping point, a doctor has shut the door on new Medicare patients, a daughter is relentless in her search for a doctor for her father, and a doctor faces a gut-wrenching decision over patient care.
The investigative series has already created a stir on the Web site’s discussion boards.
In an e-mail to the editor Santa Cruz resident Doreen Schack wrote, “I knew that area doctors receive an improperly low Medicare reimbursement rate, but reading about the effects on locals including those of someone I know really got my attention.”
Parks said community education and conversation is one of center’s biggest objectives.
“We are trying to raise the degree of civic engagement in health policy issues. We want people to take charge of healthcare in their lives and healthcare in their communities.”
This is the third project in the center’s six-month trial period. Previously it has partnered with the Merced Sun-Star where its reporters investigated a proposed medical school at UC Merced, and with the Fresno Bee where it released a series on the diabetes epidemic in the San Juaquin Valley. If it receives funding to become permanent, the Center plans to partner with other various California-based papers and eventually radio stations as well to offer health care coverage on a wide-range of topics.
Parks believes the center fills a void in health reporting, especially at a time when many media outlets lack the resources to do so themselves.
“We want to see whether non-staff material can be produced and published,” says Parks. “We want to raise the bar. And we want to be a learning organization that helps smaller papers and [other media outlets].”
There is about one month left on the center's initial trial period. If the center receives funding to become permanent, Parks plans to utilize Annenberg students by giving them an opportunity to get their feet wet in the field of health journalism.
“We expect to have Annenberg students working as interns in the program doing just about everything,” Parks said.
The CHCF, which has worked with policymakers, industry leaders, the health care workforce, researchers and the public to inform and educate Californians, is a non-partisan innovator in health care news and information, according to its Web site. Foundation-supported reporting, says the CHCF, will fill the need for in-depth, high-quality health care journalism in California and it has earmarked $239,000 for the “test-of-concept” prototype at USC Annenberg – paving the way for work that will provide the state and country health-related news.
"Collision in Care" series
More about Merced Sun-Star partnership
More about Center for California Health Care Journalism
