Last week, ProPublica hosted a conference call on our latest news application, Prescriber Checkup, and how journalists can use it to power their own localized reporting. You can watch a segment of the call below.
Prescriber Checkup makes it easy to search for doctors and other healthcare providers who are active in Medicare's prescription drug program, Part D, which currently serves more than 35 million Americans. You can use it to find out how many prescriptions individual doctors wrote, which drugs were prescribed, and their most-prescribed drugs. The tool also allows you to compare your doctors to others in his/her specialty, by state, or by medication – all information that wasn't made public until ProPublica's Freedom of Information request.
Resources:
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ProPublica's main story: Medicare Drug Program Fails to Monitor Prescribers, Putting Seniors and Disabled at Risk
- FAQ: What You Need to Know About Prescriber Checkup
- Our methodology: How We Analyzed Medicare's Drug Data
Examples of Localized Reporting:
- NBC New York: NYC Targets Pain Pills as Latest Health Scourge
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Dayton Daily News: Medicare drug tab $2.55B for older and disabled Ohioans
- Charleston Gazette: Charleston doctor is W.Va.'s top prescriber of hydrocodone
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The Lane Report: Could Medicare Part D be an inadvertant enabler of prescription drug abuse?
If you're a journalist that would like to be notified of future webinars, please email [email protected].
