Latest California Healthline Stories
Study Looks at Language Barriers to Exchange Coverage
Communities of color are expected to make up a large portion of the California Health Benefit Exchange population. Many potential enrollees have limited English skills, which could get in the way of obtaining coverage.
That’s according to a report due to be released today as a joint project of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network and the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education.
“We estimate that about 2.65 million nonelderly adults will be eligible for the exchange. Of that 2.65 million, about 67% of them are people of color,” UCLA researcher Daphna Gans said. “That’s mostly Latino, followed by African American, then Asian.”
Are ACOs Casting a Wide Net for Patients?
With the launch of the Pioneer Accountable Care Organization Model in January, health care provider organizations have been working to build their patient bases. Early signs point to a heated competition among Pioneer ACOs to attract a diverse population now in order to reap financial benefits in later years.
Dental Problems Showing Up as Emergencies
A study being released today by the Pew Foundation found that 83,000 emergency department visits in California in 2007 were due to preventable dental problems. That rate of dental emergencies is likely growing quickly, according to Shelly Gehshan, director of the national Pew Children’s Dental Campaign.
“It is the wrong service, in the wrong setting, at the wrong time,” Gehshan said.
“These are people who come in with dental pain, and they’re desperate. The emergency room can’t cure that, so they don’t really get the problem taken care of.”
Concerns Raised Over Adult Day Health Care Transition, Assessments
It has been a long, bumpy road in the state’s effort to eliminate adult day health care services as a Medi-Cal benefit. Now, on the brink of launching a new program to provide similar services, there are fresh concerns about how the state is deciding eligibility.
Exemption Granted for Pediatric Day Health
For months, Terry Racciato has been trying to get the state to reverse its imposition of a 10% Medi-Cal provider rate cut on the 14 pediatric day health care centers in California.
Racciato, who runs two PDHC centers in the San Diego area, has been arguing with the Department of Health Care Services that pediatric day health care services should be exempted from that 10% rate cut, as home health agencies were.
On Friday, the state agreed.
New California Law Seeks To Expand Telehealth Services for Medicaid Beneficiaries
April Armstrong and Thomas Nesbitt of UC-Davis Health System, Mario Gutierrez of the Center for Connected Health Policy, Jen Lang-Ree, a nurse practitioner in California, and Jonathan Lopez, a dermatology patient, spoke with California Healthline about a new law that expands and streamlines telehealth services in the state.
Hearing Examines States’ Behavioral Health Restructuring
The state has big plans for restructuring the behavioral health system in California. State legislators held a rare four-committee joint hearing this week to hear about the details of that reorganization, and to raise concerns about it.
“We understand the need to streamline and cut costs,” Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina) said, “but at what cost?”
Assembly member Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles) said California’s consumers must be at the center of all discussion about changing health care policies and programs.
“I think it is critical to pause, as a body,” Mitchell said, “to make sure consumers aren’t harmed by this streamlining of our departments.”
From Supreme Court to Appeals Court
Yesterday’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court had a ripple effect in California, influencing a number of lawsuits in the state over health care cuts.
Four lawsuits have been filed over the 10% Medi-Cal provider rate cuts, and in all four cases, a federal judge has issued a temporary injunction blocking those cuts. In another court case, an injunction halted 20% trigger cuts to Californians receiving In-Home Supportive Services.
All of those cases were waiting to see what the Supreme Court would decide in Douglas v. Independent Living Center of Southern California. Yesterday’s decision to send that case back to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was a huge victory for patient rights’ groups, according to Melinda Bird, a Disability Rights California attorney.
Pre-Reform Pressures Mount for California Hospitals
California hospitals, already under significant financial pressure in 2012, may have to contend with two proposed state ballot initiatives that would increase charity care provisions for some hospitals and limit what hospitals can charge patients. We asked stakeholders to weigh in on the initiatives.
Working Out the Details of the Exchange
James Robinson can sum up the ultimate ideal and goal of the health benefit exchange in California:
“We want to cover all services, for everyone, without prior authorization,” he said. “And without having to pay for it.”
Robinson, director of the UC Berkeley Center for Health Technology, was part of a panel discussion at yesterday’s California Health Benefit Exchange board meeting. Health experts chimed in on a series of panel discussions designed to help the board make sense of the complexity of the new exchange.