Posts by Alena Rehberger
Extra Extra Monday: Hospital ‘trauma’ charges, police and fire overtime, toxic chemical danger zones
Image from Newseum Insult to injury | Tampa Bay Times Trauma patients, who have no choice in where the ambulance takes them, are being charged as much as $33,000 the moment they enter a Florida trauma center. That money doesn’t account for X-rays or treatment; it’s just a cover charge, and thousands of patients have…
Read MoreNational Flood Insurance Program, taxpayers around $24 billion in debt
There are 534 properties in New England alone that are considered Severe Repetitive Loss properties, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which manages the insurance program. Often, these National Flood Insurance Program-insured properties have had four significant flood claims – two within one decade. Nationwide there are about 12,000. Scituate has 112 of them.…
Read MoreFlorida trauma centers charging patients expensive ‘trauma response fees’
Trauma patients, who have no choice in where the ambulance takes them, are being charged as much as $33,000 the moment they enter a Florida trauma center. That money doesn’t account for X-rays or treatment; it’s just a cover charge, and thousands of patients have been billed more for it than for their actual medical…
Read MoreSouth Hampton Roads pays millions in overtime for public safety workers
In police and fire departments across South Hampton Roads, a small number of employees work substantial amounts of overtime, while others receive little or no OT pay – at a time when there have been few raises. Twenty public safety employees in South Hampton Roads each worked more than 1,000 hours of overtime in the…
Read MoreHealthcare quality for poor varies from state to state
A review of data from the nation’s 306 healthcare markets, as well as interviews with scores of experts and visits to communities from Maine to Hawaii, points to many common features of America’s healthiest places. More people have health insurance. Doctors and hospitals cooperate more closely, ensuring patients get preventive care and don’t fall through…
Read MoreMultiple safety violations found in Owego firefighter’s death
A November state Department of Labor investigation cited 11 safety violations, of which eight were designated as serious, in connection to the fire on Jan. 21, 2013, when volunteer firefighter Matthew Porcari fell into the basement after the one-story home’s floor collapsed. The Press & Sun-Bulletin obtained the report last week through a Freedom of…
Read MoreBrown County, Wisconsin police officers involved in seven fatal shootings since 2002
Since 2002 in Brown County, police have been involved in 11 shootings, seven of which were fatal, according to Press-Gazette Media analysis of records involving the largest departments in the state’s fourth most-populous county. That’s about one every 14 months. Green Bay police officers have been involved in five fatal shootings since 2002, Press-Gazette analysis…
Read MoreCalifornia prison practices questioned after inmate suicide
A confidential corrections department report, obtained by The Sacramento Bee, summarizes the findings of a suicide review team assigned to investigate inmate David Scott Gillian’s death. All suicides in California state prisons are reviewed by a team of corrections officials. The report obtained by The Bee, based on the review team’s interviews with prison staff…
Read MoreSecond strike offenders crowding California prison system
California counties are confounding the state’s court-ordered efforts to sharply reduce its inmate population by sending state prisons far more convicts than anticipated, including a record number of people with second felony convictions. The surge in offenders requiring state prison sentences is undermining a nearly 3-year-old law pushed by Gov. Jerry Brown. The legislation restructured…
Read MoreDelaware Chief Medical Examiner subject of criminal investigation
Delaware Chief Medical Examiner Richard T. Callery, who was suspended with pay on Feb. 25, is the subject of a criminal investigation into whether he misused state resources to run a private business, The News Journal has learned.
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