California Law Aims to Strengthen Access to Mental Health Services
By Bernard J. Wolfson
The law doesn’t take effect until July, but its passage should force insurers to expand their rosters of therapists. Here’s how you can challenge your health plan’s mental health services until then.
Direct Primary Care, With a Touch of Robin Hood
By Bernard J. Wolfson
Photos by Heidi de Marco
Some doctors, sick of mainstream health care’s red tape, are finding refuge in practices that combine concierge medicine with charity care.
Atención primaria directa con un toque de Robin Hood
By Bernard J. Wolfson
St. Luke’s Family Practice es una respuesta local a los problemas sistémicos de la sanidad estadounidense, como el agotamiento de los médicos, la insatisfacción de los pacientes y el hecho de que millones de personas sigan careciendo de asistencia.
Wildfire Smoke Is Here to Stay. Here’s How to Clean the Air Inside Your Home.
By Bernard J. Wolfson
There are many ways to cleanse indoor air of dangerous smoke particles, which are particularly harmful to people with chronic respiratory and cardiac conditions. Some are expensive, but cheap alternatives exist.
California’s Reboot of Troubled Medi-Cal Puts Pressure on Health Plans
By Bernard J. Wolfson
Photos by Heidi de Marco
The nine commercial insurers in Medi-Cal must reapply by submitting bids for new contracts. The state hopes the process will improve care for low-income residents and tighten accountability, something critics say has been missing.
Leader of California’s Muscular Obamacare Exchange to Step Down
By Bernard J. Wolfson and Angela Hart
Peter Lee helped create Covered California, which has been lauded as a national example among the Affordable Care Act’s insurance marketplaces, and he fiercely opposed Republican efforts to repeal the federal health reform law.
Providence-KP Team Up to Attract Patients in California’s Growing High Desert Region
By Bernard J. Wolfson
Providence, the country’s 10th-biggest hospital chain, says it’s too expensive to upgrade an older hospital, so it will join forces with giant Kaiser Permanente to build a new one.
Effort to Decipher Hospital Prices Yields Key Finding: Don’t Try It at Home
By Bernard J. Wolfson
Your dutiful columnist tried to make use of a federal “transparency” rule to compare the prices of common medical procedures in two California health care systems. It was a futile exercise.
Being Vaccinated Doesn’t Mean You Must Go Maskless. Here’s Why.
By Bernard J. Wolfson
It won’t hurt to remain cautious, even as California reopens for business in response to mass vaccinations and diminishing cases of covid.
Can a Subscription Model Fix Primary Care in the US?
By Bernard J. Wolfson
Medical subscriptions, a $199 million CEO payday and the race to fix primary care in the U.S. One Medical is betting big that a subscription model can fix primary care. But the firm faces competition from CVS, Target and large hospital systems.
