Latest California Healthline Stories
Mental Health Advocates Sue Over Governor’s Cuts
Before the governor signed the state budget, he cut about $1 billion from it. One of those line-item vetoes trims $133 million from mental health services spending for children.
According to advocates who filed a lawsuit Friday to stop it, those cuts are illegal.
“Only the state Legislature has the authority to reverse the mandate to provide these services,” Jim Preis of Mental Health Advocacy Services said.
Health Care Futurist Questions U.S. Health IT Strategy
In an interview with California Healthline, health care futurist Jeff Goldsmith said information technology adoption has lagged in the health care industry because there’s no definable return on investment and questioned whether the “meaningful use” incentive program will be successful in improving the rate of adoption.
Exchange Passage Raises Question: Now What?
When you’re the first to launch a new program, it is often greeted with a measure of fear and suspicion, according to Jon Kingsdale, former executive director of the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority in Massachusetts.
And one of the common misconceptions about the exchange in Massachusetts and the exchange-to-be in California, he said, has been the worry that somehow the exchange will be constantly at odds with health insurance companies.
“As a non-regulatory marketplace for insurance, with a mandate to serve the public, there is a strong interest in having long-term, value-based relations with health plans,” Kingsdale said. “Meaning, we want them to make a little money.”
Senate Probes Reasons for Adverse Hospital Events
They are events that leave patients worse off than when they first come to the hospital — from “never events” such as leaving surgical devices in a patient after an operation, to the acquisition of MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), a highly resistant bacterial infection.
“I believe that the DPH (California’s Department of Public Health) has not been actively pursuing the reporting of adverse events within the five days required by statute,” Senate member Elaine Alquist (D-Santa Clara) said. “Now, I don’t know if we’re talking fines or not, but I do know the system is not working.”
Alquist is chair of the Senate panel that convened yesterday and gathered representatives from state health agencies, hospital associations and patient advocate groups to discuss reporting and preventing adverse events in California hospitals.
Palliative Care for Kids Takes Root in L.A., Orange County
A Medi-Cal waiver is helping to alter the cure-versus-care landscape for California’s youngest patients with chronic conditions. At-home palliative care programs for such children are taking root in Los Angeles and Orange County.
California Exchange Compared to its Predecessors
California is the first in the nation to pass legislation to create a health benefit exchange in response to the national health care reform law. But that doesn’t mean it’s the first exchange in the nation.
Four other states implemented some kind of exchange ahead of the national reform law — Massachusetts, Connecticut, Utah and the newest exchange recently established in Washington state.
“In Utah, it’s more of a clearinghouse model,” according to Julie Sonier, deputy director of the University of Minnesota’s SHADAC (the State Health Access Data Assistance Center). “And Connecticut is different, in that it’s entirely a private model. It’s less like an exchange, and more like a set of insurance products for their members. They’re not trying to organize the market.”
Reform Rollout May Waver if More Seek Exemptions
HHS’ recent decision to grant waivers for health plans that would not meet a key provision of health reform exposes how stakeholders can weaken implementation by simply resisting its measures.
Several Factors Contributing to California’s Record-Breaking Whooping Cough Epidemic
James Cherry of UCLA, Kathleen Harriman of the California Department of Public Health and Yvonne Maldonado of Stanford University spoke with California Healthline about the state’s recent whooping cough outbreak.
High-Risk Insurance Plan About To Start
Originally, the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan was going to cover high-risk patients by the end of September. That start-up date was pushed forward to Oct. 7, and now it’s on an any-day-now status.
“We’re still working with vendors to finalize the contracts,” Jeanie Esajian of the PCIP said. “It’s a very complex process. All I can tell you is, it could be any day now that we announce coverage to begin.”
PCIP is a state-run, federally funded high-risk insurance plan for patients who have been unable to obtain health care coverage because of pre-existing conditions. Under the rules of national health care reform, due to go into effect by 2014, insurance companies will no longer be allowed to prevent individuals with pre-existing conditions from obtaining coverage.
Electronic Records Revolution About To Hit?
With all the talk about implementing electronic health records throughout California’s health care centers, you would think technology is now part of the health infrastructure. But adoption of EHRs by physicians and hospitals is far from ubiquitous in the state, according to Larry Dickey, medical director at the Office of Health Information Technology, in the state’s Department of Health Care Services.
The data are not good on just how many physicians have implemented EHRs so far, Dickey said, but it’s clear that a large number of private clinicians do not have them.
“The larger physician groups are more likely to have them than the solo practitioners,” Dickey said. Hospitals, “where you would expect much higher numbers,” Dickey said, are still lagging. Dickey said “45% of hospitals have no electronic health record at all.”