About Us

Health News Florida Inc., an independent online news service, is a not-for-profit journalistic enterprise that was launched in March 2007 (under the name Florida Health News Inc.) with seed money from foundations.  Our mission: to inform the public on state and local health policy and finance issues as they develop. Health News Florida (HNF) posts health-related stories reported around the state, highlights the Florida impact of national stories, and tracks state health legislation.   As financially struggling newspapers shrink coverage of serious health issues in Tallahassee and around the state, HNF has filled gaps through staff and free-lance reporting. HNF is sponsored by the Florida Health Policy Center. 

Health News Florida's reach is far more than our e-newsletters and website. The Associated Press publishes our stories and numerous newspapers have run our stories:

In addition, Florida Trend links to our stories in their daily e-newsletter.

HNF also offers e-Alerts, a Monday-through-Friday news service, available at no charge,  by signing up here. 

We value your feedback. Contact Carol Gentry, Editor, by e-mail or phone: 727-410-3266.

FAQs

I haven't been getting my daily eAlert. What's the matter?
From time to time, our eAlerts get blocked by new security screens that you, your Internet service providers or your employer's in-house technical team put up. Without intending to, the screens can block not only unwanted spam but also e-mails that you have requested, including our daily eAlert.

If you notice that you haven't received your eAlert by noon on a weekday, check your spam filter. If it's there, right click on it and find the option of placing it on the protected entry list.

If it's not there, and you have an IT consultant in your workplace, ask them to find the problem and resolve it. It really helps for us to provide them with the bounceback message we get so that they can tell what's happening. That's why we try to contact those who have not been receiving our eAlerts.

Sometimes, as with AOL, an ISP is so large that it's tough to get them to take down a blocking screen. If that happens, try adding the address eAlerts@HealthNewsFlorida.org to your address book. This should deactivate the service provider's spam filter.

Why don't the links work in my eAlert?
Clearing your browser's history can sometimes fix the problem.  Sometimes your email server blocks access to our site via the links. Please forward your IT folks our eAlert and ask them to correct.

How long do stories remain up on healthnewsflorida.org?
Articles reported by our own staff and correspondents can be found either at the tab "HNF Stories" or at the search box.  Links to stories published by others should be live for seven days at "Week in Review," but after that, try our search box. Caution: HNF has no control over the length of time that other publications keep their articles available for free to the public. (Articles before March 31, 2009, were published under the name "Florida Health News".) 

What are RSS feeds and how can I access them?
RSS (which stands for Really Simple Syndication) feeds, deliver the latest headlines from Health News Florida directly to your desktop or web browser. You’ll need special software to access RSS feeds, but there are numerous readers available and most are free. Some popular readers for articles include: Google Reader, Feed Demon, FeedReader, My Yahoo!, My MSN, My AOL, NewsGator and NewzCrawler.  After setting up your news reader, you will be ready to access HNF’s RSS feeds. To subscribe to the Health News Florida feed, follow the instructions for your particular news reader, and then copy and paste this location (URL) -- feed://www.HealthNewsFlorida.org/rss.xml -- wherever it asks for the location of the service you wish to subscribe to.

Can I reprint an original HNF story?
Health News Florida allows bona fide metro and community newspapers to republish our original articles, with proper credit, at no charge.  We have taken this action because of the crisis in newsrooms that has forced cutbacks in coverage of important health issues. For permission and details, contact Carol Gentry.