Report: Enrollment in Healthy San Francisco Up 24% Since Last Year
The number of residents enrolled in Healthy San Francisco has increased 24% since last year, according to a report released by the San Francisco Department of Public Health, the San Francisco Chronicle reports (Knight et al., San Francisco Chronicle, 10/22).
Background
Lawmakers created Healthy San Francisco in 2006 to provide health services to adult city residents who were not eligible for Medi-Cal -- California's Medicaid program -- or for Medicare.
The program requires businesses with 20 or more employees to provide a certain level of health insurance coverage or pay into a city health care pool (California Healthline, 6/29).
Report Findings
The new report on Healthy San Francisco found that:
- The program has enrolled about 53,400 residents out of the estimated 60,000 uninsured adults in the city;
- The number of primary care providers participating in Healthy San Francisco has increased by 19% since 2008; and
- The number of Healthy San Francisco beneficiaries seeking care at San Francisco General Hospital's emergency department has remained steady over the past three years.
The report also determined that about 9% of ED visits made by Healthy San Francisco beneficiaries could have been treated in a primary care setting. Statewide, about 18% of ED visits made by Medi-Cal beneficiaries would be appropriate for the primary care setting (Sherbert, San Francisco Examiner, 10/22).
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