Charles Ornstein
Charles Ornstein is managing editor, local, overseeing ProPublica’s local initiatives. These include offices in the Midwest, South, Southwest and Northwest, a joint initiative with the Texas Tribune, and the Local Reporting Network, which works with local news organizations to produce accountability journalism on issues of importance to their communities.
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Charles Ornstein is managing editor, local, overseeing ProPublica’s local initiatives. These include offices in the Midwest, South, Southwest and Northwest, a joint initiative with the Texas Tribune, and the Local Reporting Network, which works with local news organizations to produce accountability journalism on issues of importance to their communities. From 2008 to 2017, he was a senior reporter covering health care and the pharmaceutical industry. He then worked as a senior editor and deputy managing editor.
Prior to joining ProPublica, he was a member of the metro investigative projects team at the Los Angeles Times. In 2004, he and Tracy Weber were lead authors on a series on Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, a troubled hospital in South Los Angeles. The articles won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for public service, the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service.
In 2009, he and Weber worked on a series of stories that detailed serious failures in oversight by the California Board of Registered Nursing and nursing boards around the country. The work was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for public service.
Projects edited or co-edited by Ornstein have won the Pulitzer Prize for public service, the Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting, the Scripps Howard Impact Award, the IRE Award, the Online Journalism Award and other major journalism honors.
He previously worked at the Dallas Morning News, where he covered health care on the business desk and worked in the Washington bureau. Ornstein is a past president of the Association of Health Care Journalists and an adjunct journalism professor at Columbia University. Ornstein is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
Doctors Avoid Penalties in Suits Against Medical Firms
At least 15 drug and medical-device companies have paid $6.5 billion since 2008 to settle accusations of marketing fraud or kickbacks, but none of the more than 75 doctors named as participants were sanctioned.
Troubled Health-Care Staffing Chain Settles With Government for $150 Million
Maxim Healthcare Services, Inc. had been accused of submitting false bills to federal and state health programs. An earlier ProPublica investigation found that the company had hired several nurses despite a history of problems.
News Reports Cite Drop in Physician Speaking Fees
Regional newspapers that analyzed ProPublica's Dollars for Docs data say drug company payments to physician speakers have declined in their states, suggesting that new restrictions and publicity are making an impact.
Patients Deserve to Know What Drug Companies Pay Their Doctor
ProPublica's newly updated Dollars for Docs database offers a glimpse of what patients can expect in 2013, when all drug and medical-device companies must report to the federal government what they pay doctors to help market their products.
Doctors Dine on Drug Companies’ Dime
Hundreds of thousands of doctors have accepted free meals from pharmaceutical companies that invite them to scientific or educational sessions. At least 20 physicians accepted more than $2,000 worth of meals from one company last year, ProPublica's Dollars for Docs database shows.
Piercing the Veil, More Drug Companies Reveal Payments to Doctors
An update of ProPublica's Dollars for Docs database includes more than $760 million in payments from 12 pharmaceutical companies to physicians and other health-care providers for consulting, speaking, research and expenses.
Dollars for Docs: See What Payments Your Doctor May Be Getting From Drug Companies
Has Your Doctor Received Drug Company Money?
With Our Dollars for Docs Update Coming, Drug Companies Defend 'Interactions' With Physicians
As ProPublica gets ready to refresh its Dollars for Docs database listing payments from drug companies to hundreds of thousands of doctors, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America says paid physician speakers play a critical role in improving patient care.
UCLA Health System Pays $865,000 to Settle Celebrity Privacy Allegations
Alleged breaches of patient privacy at UCLA involving entertainers like Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Britney Spears and others and have been a source of embarrassment for the health system for several years. UCLA said it has taken steps to improve protection of patient privacy rights.
Medical Schools Plug Holes in Conflict-of-Interest Policies
Reacting to ProPublica's Dollars for Docs coverage, Stanford and other schools discipline doctors, rewrite policies and increase scrutiny of drug-industry ties.