Maya Miller
Maya Miller is an engagement reporter at ProPublica working on community-sourced investigations.
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Maya Miller is an engagement reporter at ProPublica working on community-sourced investigations. She’s collaborated across and beyond the newsroom on series about aggressive medical debt collection practices, housing and evictions, as well as toxic air pollution and health. The impact of her reporting includes a national doctors’ group announcing it would stop suing patients for medical debt, state legislators introducing a bill to repeal a criminal eviction statute, as well as federal lawmakers and officials promising investigations and reforms.
Her reporting within ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network, which has included working with residents to monitor air quality and crowdsourcing real-time reactions to air pollution, has contributed to several awards. These include a 2020 Selden Ring Award and Gerald Loeb Award (“Profiting from the Poor”), as well as a 2021 finalist for the Anthony Shadid Award for Journalism Ethics and the Gather Award in Engaged Journalism (“State of Denial”). Her work has appeared in NBC Investigations, Chicago magazine and the Chicago Tribune, among others. She lives in New York and speaks Spanish.
Her Mental Health Treatment Was Helping. That’s Why Insurance Cut Off Her Coverage.
Providers, patients and even some federal judges say progress-based insurance denials harm patients at key moments of mental health treatment.
Insurers Continue to Rely on Doctors Whose Judgments Have Been Criticized by Courts
In dozens of cases ProPublica reviewed, judges found that some doctors working for these companies engaged in “selective readings” of medical evidence and “shut their eyes” to medical opinions opposing their conclusions.
“I Have Lost Everything”: The Toll of Cities’ Homeless Sweeps
Cities often take belongings — including important documents and irreplaceable mementos — when they conduct sweeps of homeless encampments. ProPublica gave notecards to people across the country so they could explain what they lost in their own words.
Cities Say They Store Property Taken From Homeless Encampments. People Rarely Get Their Things Back.
Storage programs are meant to protect people’s property rights and allow them to reclaim their possessions. But they rarely accomplish either objective, according to a ProPublica investigation of cities with the largest homeless populations.
How UnitedHealth’s Playbook for Limiting Mental Health Coverage Puts Countless Americans’ Treatment at Risk
United used an algorithm system to identify patients who it determined were getting too much therapy and then limited coverage. It was deemed illegal in three states, but similar practices persist due to a patchwork of regulation.
Swept Away
From birth certificates to loved ones’ ashes, these are just some of the belongings cities take when they clear homeless encampments.
New Biden Administration Rules Aim to Hold Insurers Accountable for Mental Health Care Coverage
The regulations will force health insurance plans to collect and report more data on how they limit and deny mental health claims. ProPublica’s reporting has found that insurers regularly shortchange patients seeking treatment.
What Mental Health Care Protections Exist in Your State?
Insurers have wide latitude on when and how they can deny mental health care. We looked at the laws in all 50 states and found that some are charting new paths to secure mental health care access.
Why It’s So Hard to Find a Therapist Who Takes Insurance
Those who need therapy often have to pay out of pocket or go without care, even if they have health insurance. Hundreds of mental health providers told us they fled networks because insurers made their jobs impossible and their lives miserable.
Have You Experienced Homelessness? Do You Work With People Who Have? Connect With Our Reporters.
We’re working with journalists in New York, Maine and Oregon on projects related to homelessness. We’re also interested in how cities have further criminalized sleeping outside. Learn more about our work and how to get in touch.
A Doctor at Cigna Said Her Bosses Pressured Her to Review Patients’ Cases Too Quickly. Cigna Threatened to Fire Her.
Cigna tracks every minute that its staff doctors spend deciding whether to pay for health care. Dr. Debby Day said her bosses cared more about being fast than being right.