Eric Sagara was a News Applications Fellow at ProPublica. Prior to that he was a reporter on the Newark Star-Ledger's data team. He is originally from Arizona, where he reported on business, education, crime and government.
Eric Sagara
News Applications Fellow
Deadly Force, in Black and White
A ProPublica analysis of killings by police shows outsize risk for young black males.
What We've Learned From Four Years of Diving Into Dollars for Docs
Payments from pharmaceutical companies touch hundreds of thousands of doctors. The 17 companies we've tracked spent $1.4 billion in 2013 alone. Here are our top five takeaways from following all that money.
Ambulances for Dialysis Patients on Rise
New Jersey leads the nation in average annual Medicare spending on ambulance services per dialysis patient, billing for unusually large numbers of non-emergency ambulance rides, according to a our analysis of Medicare payment data. Several ambulance providers said they’ve heard of providers who sign up patients who don't need the service — a form of fraud. These charts show spending by state from 2001 to 2011, compared to national averages. Sort by the most-recent year or by state.
Where Do the Guns Traced in Your State Come From?
Nearly a third of the 155,000 guns officials recovered in 2012 were traced back to sources outside the state they were found in, according to data compiled by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Use this tool to see firearms traces in each state that year.
The Department of Labor’s Internships Investigations
In 2010, the Labor Department issued a new fact sheet clarifying when an intern needs to be paid under federal labor law. We collected the case files for all the internship investigations the Labor Department concluded in the three years after issuing new regulations.
Doctor Payments on the Decline
Pharmaceutical company payments to health care professionals dropped between 2011 and 2012 among most of the companies and categories ProPublica tracks, driven in part by increased transparency as well as blockbuster drugs losing patent protection. Research payments, however, have increased among that group.
As Full Disclosure Nears, Doctors’ Pay for Drug Talks Plummets
As transparency increases and blockbuster drugs lose patent protection, drug companies have dramatically scaled back payments to doctors for promotional talks. This fall, all drug and medical device companies will be required to report payments to doctors.
