Pan Named Chair of Health Care Work Force Committee
Richard Pan, a pediatrician newly elected to the Assembly from Natomas (near Sacramento), was named this week to chair the Assembly select committee on health care work force and access to care. It’s a subject the Democrat knows well, since he worked as the director of the pediatric residency program at UC Davis before winning his Assembly seat in November.
The dearth in physicians and other providers in the state is felt particularly strongly in rural and underserved urban areas, he said. The first step to fixing that, he said, may be to have more training and development of health professionals.
“What we want to try to look at is to find effective ways to deal with geographic maldistribution of providers, and to find and leverage funding to enable people to enter health professions,” Pan said.
Budget Subcommittee Gets an Earful
Even before the Senate budget subcommittee started yesterday, chair Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord) asked the packed chamber for a little indulgence.
“We’re about to have a four-hour hearing on what’s going to be a very difficult subject,” DeSaulnier said.
“So please don’t get cranky with the chair,” he said, “I just want to make sure everyone gets heard.”
Medical Loss Ratio Threshold Goes to 80%
The Department of Insurance already regulates a 70% medical-loss ratio on insurers of individual health plans so it was not a huge leap to bump that limitation to 80%, given the new federal standard at that level, according to Janice Rocco, deputy commissioner of health policy for the DOI.
“We maintain the [current state requirement of a] 70% medical-loss ratio,” she said, “and we also need to comply with the federal 80% ratio, which is calculated in a different way than the state ratio.”
The state Office of Administrative Law agreed, and yesterday granted the Insurance Commissioner and his department the authority to enforce those federal standards.
Health Cuts Raising Seniors’ Hackles
It doesn’t sound like much, the meeting of Senate subcommittee #3.
But tomorrow’s subcommittee hearing is the first time the Legislature will be discussing some of the $1.7 billion in proposed Medi-Cal cuts.
That includes elimination of the Adult Day Health Services program, which Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown hopes would save the state $177 million of general fund money. Lydia Missaelides, executive director of the California Association for Adult Day Services, doesn’t believe it.
Small Businesses Eligible for Health Insurance Incentive
Only 43% of small business owners are familiar with a tax credit that could help pay their health insurance costs for employees, according to a national survey released last week by the Small Business Majority (SBM).
“I’m not surprised,” John Arensmeyer of the California chapter of the SBM said. “There has been a lot more heat than light shared on this law, so there’s been a lot of confusion.”
Arensmeyer has worked on a statewide “listening tour” for the past nine months, talking to small business owners about the creation of California’s health benefit exchange and the potential savings from the tax credit.
Mandate Bills Merit Independent Review
Maternity care. Tobacco cessation. Mammograms. HPV vaccinations. Hearing aids for children.
These are just a few of the legislative attempts at mandates for health insurance coverage in California. Each of those proposals needs to be evaluated before it hits committee. The under-the-radar group that does those evaluations — the California Health Benefits Review Program — has issued 68 CHBRP reports since 2004.
The CHBRP held its annual legislative briefing yesterday in Sacramento. And, honestly, it was worth attending just to hear men in suits say the acronym “Cha-BURP” over and over again.
Dental Evaluation Now Part of MRMIB Effort
The Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board has about 875,000 subscribers — so when it evaluates which health plans show the highest quality improvements, that information is important for quite a number of Californians.
This year, it chose six organizations that showed overall superior performance in the quality of care for children in Healthy Families, California’s version of the federal State Children’s Health Insurance Program administered by MRMIB:
Hope Raised by Patient-Centered Medical Home
Robert Reid thinks he has seen the future, and it comes from Washington.
Not D.C. — the state of Washington.
That’s where Reid of Seattle’s Group Health Research Institute has seen the patient-centered medical home in action, and that’s what he was preaching to medical leaders in Sacramento yesterday.
Providers Set To Reap Cash from IT Incentive Program
California has a new interim coordinator for health information technology. Linette Scott stepped in for Jonah Frohlich, who resigned as deputy secretary of health IT at the California Health and Human Services Agency to take a job in the San Francisco law office of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips.
Scott presided over her first stakeholder meeting last week at an opportune time. CMS had just opened up registration for financial incentives for electronic health record implementation.
“This effort is much broader than just an IT project,” Scott said. “This is a way to improve health of all Californians.”
Telemedicine in California Becoming Tele-Reality
Telemedicine may seem futuristic, but it’s not. Not anymore.
“The good news is, at CTN [the California Telehealth Network], we have actually activated sites,” CTN Executive Director Eric Brown said. “Which is huge. This is really huge for us.”
Brown said approximately 25 sites have activated their connections since Dec. 1, and that’s just the run-up to a much bigger launch.