REGULATION: L.A. TIMES WEIGHS IN ON CALIF. SURVEY
An editorial in yesterday's Los Angeles Times urgedThis is part of the California Healthline Daily Edition, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.
California leaders to pay attention to a recent University of
California-Berkeley finding that "42% of those surveyed reported
having problems with their health plans in the last year" (see
AHL 12/4). "A close reading of the survey," the Times notes,
"shows that what has come to trouble many HMO patients is not so
much poor care but the rushed care that some HMOs provide." The
editorial states that health plans should learn from the UC-
Berkeley study, as well as a recent study by Harvard researchers
which found that "51% of Americans believed that managed care was
eroding the quality of health care" (see AHL 11/6), "that there
is no surer way of building patient satisfaction than to allow
doctors to spend adequate time with their patients."
HEED THE WARNING
The Times editorial notes that Stanford University health
economist Alain Enthoven, the head of the California managed care
task force that commissioned the Berkeley survey, "dismissed some
survey respondents, saying they were just grousing about the
relative lack of luxury in HMOs." But the editorial says "at
least one of the Berkeley findings cannot be dismissed so
lightly: 21% of those surveyed not only reported some type of
problem with their health plan, they said the problem had
worsened their medical condition." The Times states that
Enthoven's task force "must not shirk this problem" and that an
"oversight body" recommended by the task force "should have
enough political independence and regulatory clout to oversee
HMOs more diligently than the state's current regulatory body,
the Department of Corporations." The Times concludes, "The
surveys clearly show that patients want counseling and advice
from their doctors and nurses, not just medical procedures. Low
patient turnover is a cost saving, so a little more time spent
'just talking' can actually have a bottom-line payoff" (12/8).