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From: Lauren Weber
Date: Thu, Dec 01 2022 10:44AM
Subject: Inaccessible Medical Bills: KHN Investigation
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Hi all --

Lauren Weber, KHN reporter here who previously reached out to better
understand the prevalence of inaccessible medical bills.

Thanks so much for all the responses, and I wanted to pass along our
investigation that found across the U.S., health insurers and health care
systems are breaking disability rights laws by sending inaccessible medical
bills and notices. The practice hinders the ability of blind Americans to
know what they owe, effectively creating a disability tax on their time and
finances.

There is an audio version of it as well as the bottom of the story!

Here is the link:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/12/01/1139730806/blind-disability-accessibility-medical-bills


Please don't hesitate to reach out to me with any questions or comments,
and I appreciate the time so many of you took to fill out our questionnaire.

All the best,
Lauren Weber
314.703.5829
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
--
Lauren Weber
Midwest Correspondent | Kaiser Health News
@LaurenWeberHP
314.703.5829

From: Brandon Keith Biggs
Date: Thu, Dec 01 2022 11:08AM
Subject: Re: Inaccessible Medical Bills: KHN Investigation
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Hello Lauren,
Thank you so much for highlighting the difficulty blind individuals have
with medical bills. I almost never see anything related to blindness and
accessibility go through my news feed, so even though your findings are
depressing, it made my day to know this issue was being highlighted in
national news!
There are so many problems like this within the disability community, I
would love it if you could do more articles focusing on the incredible
number of systemic inaccessibility problems that people with disabilities
face every day. Here is a short five minute brainstorm I had. Blindness is
what I know, so it was my focus:

- Pill bottles in the U.S. are completely inaccessible to blind
people, but in Europe, medications have braille.

- Medical devices for at-home use are often missing digital
instructions, accessible labels, or use a touchscreen without a screen
reader, making the device difficult or impossible to use.

- Non-visual COVID tests first came out in June 2022, two years
after COVID hit the U.S. and there are still no accessible pregnancy tests
you can get at home.

- It's extremely difficult for someone who is blind to independently
navigate medical facilities without tools like Goodmaps that provide
turn-by-turn navigation to a destination.

- Most medical facilities have a ton of paperwork that you need to
complete when you arrive that's not in a digital form so you can
independently fill it out, so either your doctor or someone at the
front-desk, needs to complete the form with you, which takes up your time
with the doctor in the first scenario, and has privacy concerns in the
second.

- Often medical records are in PDF form, and not properly tagged for
accessibility, which make the PDFs impossible to read. My health insurance
documents were very inaccessible before our company trained someone to
properly tag PDFs.

And these are only a few of the medically-related topics, there are many
other topics in education, employment, shopping, digital accessibility, and
home life that impact people just as much, if not more than, inaccessible
medical bills.

Thank you,



Brandon Keith Biggs <http://brandonkeithbiggs.com/>;


On Thu, Dec 1, 2022 at 9:45 AM Lauren Weber < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:

> Hi all --
>
> Lauren Weber, KHN reporter here who previously reached out to better
> understand the prevalence of inaccessible medical bills.
>
> Thanks so much for all the responses, and I wanted to pass along our
> investigation that found across the U.S., health insurers and health care
> systems are breaking disability rights laws by sending inaccessible medical
> bills and notices. The practice hinders the ability of blind Americans to
> know what they owe, effectively creating a disability tax on their time and
> finances.
>
> There is an audio version of it as well as the bottom of the story!
>
> Here is the link:
>
> https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/12/01/1139730806/blind-disability-accessibility-medical-bills
>
>
> Please don't hesitate to reach out to me with any questions or comments,
> and I appreciate the time so many of you took to fill out our
> questionnaire.
>
> All the best,
> Lauren Weber
> 314.703.5829
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> --
> Lauren Weber
> Midwest Correspondent | Kaiser Health News
> @LaurenWeberHP
> 314.703.5829
> > > > >

From: chagnon@pubcom.com
Date: Thu, Dec 01 2022 12:37PM
Subject: Re: Inaccessible Medical Bills: KHN Investigation
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Noting that Lauren Weber just joined the Washington Post's Health and Science team.

WaPo article is at https://www.washingtonpost.com/pr/2022/11/29/lauren-weber-joins-post-an-accountability-reporter-focused-disinformation/

Welcome to the hood (Washington DC) Lauren!!!

—Bevi Chagnon
— — —
Bevi Chagnon | Designer, Accessibility Technician | = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
— — —
PubCom: Technologists for Accessible Design + Publishing
consulting ' training ' development ' design ' sec. 508 services
Upcoming classes at www.PubCom.com/classes
— — —
Latest blog-newsletter – Simple Guide to Writing Alt-Text

From: Laura Roberts
Date: Sat, Dec 03 2022 9:15AM
Subject: Re: Inaccessible Medical Bills: KHN Investigation
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What a great article! Thanks Lauren.
The moment I read this: "Kaiser Permanente spokesperson Marc Brown said
that the health system conducted an accessibility review after KHN informed
it of Weaver's comments, and he said the company found "no significant
defects in the platform, nor do we know of any inaccessibility issues" that
would limit someone from paying their bill or using its website."
I immediately assumed they used some free online or built-in accessibility
checker rather than cough up the money for accessibility specialists and
testers like us.

On Thu, Dec 1, 2022 at 12:45 PM Lauren Weber < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:

> Hi all --
>
> Lauren Weber, KHN reporter here who previously reached out to better
> understand the prevalence of inaccessible medical bills.
>
> Thanks so much for all the responses, and I wanted to pass along our
> investigation that found across the U.S., health insurers and health care
> systems are breaking disability rights laws by sending inaccessible medical
> bills and notices. The practice hinders the ability of blind Americans to
> know what they owe, effectively creating a disability tax on their time and
> finances.
>
> There is an audio version of it as well as the bottom of the story!
>
> Here is the link:
>
> https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/12/01/1139730806/blind-disability-accessibility-medical-bills
>
>
> Please don't hesitate to reach out to me with any questions or comments,
> and I appreciate the time so many of you took to fill out our
> questionnaire.
>
> All the best,
> Lauren Weber
> 314.703.5829
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> --
> Lauren Weber
> Midwest Correspondent | Kaiser Health News
> @LaurenWeberHP
> 314.703.5829
> > > > >


--
Best regards,
Laura Roberts
413-588-8422