Latest California Healthline Stories
Few People Aware of Medical Review Program
It has been 11 years since California launched its Independent Medical Review program, an appeals process that allows Californians to challenge denial or delay of coverage by private health care insurers.
In the Capitol Building in Sacramento yesterday, a policy briefing laid out the findings of a new report on IMR that includes praise for its effectiveness and some recommendations on how to make the program stronger.
The briefing was sponsored by the California HealthCare Foundation, which commissioned the report and publishes California Healthline.
Adult Day Health Services Budget Looks Familiar
The recent state budget proposal includes the expected cost of the Community-Based Adult Services program for next year: roughly $83 million.
That number is eerily close to last year’s budget estimate for the Keeping Adults Free from Institutions program, which was an alternative adult day services plan that the Legislature passed in June. The Legislature approved $85 million for the KAFI program, which was designed as a half-price replacement for the adult day health care program.
Gov. Jerry Brown (D) vetoed KAFI.
UC-Merced Students Tap Telehealth Tools To Treat Diabetes
Business students at UC-Merced are embarking on a telehealth initiative to monitor patients with gestational diabetes in the Central Valley. The project aims to target women without adequate access to medical care.
State Gets Resistance to Moving All Healthy Families’ Kids
A coalition of not-for-profit children’s groups yesterday sent a letter to California officials asking them to scale back the state’s ambitious plan to move 875,000 children out of the Healthy Families program and into a new Medi-Cal managed care program.
“We do not support the governor’s proposal,” Suzie Shupe of California Coverage and Health Initiatives said. “We have some very serious concerns about it. It’s a very rapid timeline, for one, and in our view does not detail the kind of safeguards that need to be in place, and the monitoring of access to that care, to make sure kids do get access to quality health care.”
Yesterday’s letter was a joint effort from Children Now, The Children’s Partnership, PICO California, the Children’s Defense Fund California and United Ways of California, as well as CCHI. It calls for a scaled-back version of the governor’s proposal.
Center for Democracy & Technology’s McGraw Discusses Health Data Privacy Challenges
Deven McGraw, director of the Health Privacy Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, spoke with California Healthline about the challenges of protecting health data privacy.
Why We Can’t Get National Malpractice Reform
National medical malpractice reform has been stalled for years, and a newly released White House memo helps underscore why federal efforts have been a non-starter.
Assembly Passes Mental Health, Addiction Coverage Bill
To Assembly member Jim Beall (D-San Jose), it just makes sense. When private insurers fail to cover addiction and mental health services, he said, the cost of those illnesses fall on the state.
“If you don’t treat it, it gets worse. If it gets worse, it gets shoved over to the public sector,” Beall said. “And then, if it gets shoved into the public sector, it gets worse. Then they end up in prison, with a substance abuse or mental health problem in prison, and this is costing the state way too much money. We need to stop the cycle.”
Beall is the author of AB 154, a bill requiring insurers to cover mental health and addiction services, which passed the Assembly floor late last week.
Personal Stories Highlight Oral Chemotherapy Bill
New legislation proposed by Assembly member Henry Perea (D-Fresno) would require health plans to provide chemotherapy in pill form, in some cases.
“This bill will provide greater access for oral chemotherapy treatment,” Perea said on the Assembly floor late last week. “This is the right thing to do, to allow people access to lifesaving drugs.”
Perea introduced the measure with his personal account of caring for his mother, who he said was diagnosed with stage 2 lung cancer just over a year ago. During the long, eight-hour chemo infusion in the hospital, he learned quite a lot about cancer and chemo from patients and professionals.
How Should California Measure Quality in Health Care?
The Obama administration earlier this month announced its initial set of health care quality measures in accordance with the Affordable Care Act. A California group recently released its suggestions for meaningful and usable measures. We asked California policymakers and stakeholders how California should measure quality in health care.
Single Payer 2 Votes Short in Senate
The idea of a single-payer health care system in California stalled on the Senate floor yesterday, falling two votes short of passage.
Reconsideration of the bill was granted, though, so proponents of SB 810 by Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) have until Tuesday to reintroduce the bill. First they will have to come up with two big votes. The bill failed on a 19-15 vote.
“We don’t want to follow the path of Europe, where the economy is in trouble, where the Euro is failing,” Sen. Ted Gaines (R-Roseville) said. “It’s not the example we should follow. We don’t have the money. I don’t know where the money’s going to come from.”