Medi-Cal Payments Are Going Up, But That Won’t Magically Solve Access Problems
For the first time in 17 years, doctors are getting a pay increase for taking Medi-Cal patients, but not everyone who refused to accept them before did so because of the low reimbursement rates.
Ventura County Star:
California Doctors Get More Money But Will They Treat More Poor People?
It seems like a simple solution. Raise what you pay doctors for treating low-income patients, and they’ll treat more of them. All those waits for appointments and physician shortages that have long plagued the state’s low-income health insurance program — a program that one out of every three Californians now relies on—could be remedied with a simple dose of economics. But in health care, nothing is that simple. (Levin, 8/10)