Latest California Healthline Stories
State Lawmakers Want To Overhaul Mental Health Programs
Ratan Bhavnani of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Linda Boyd and Kathleen Piché of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson and Sen. Darrell Steinberg spoke with California Healthline about the legislative and local efforts to change the state’s approach to handling mental illness.
Dental Group Warns of Provider Crisis for Special Needs Oral Care Patients
Low Medi-Cal reimbursement rates are blamed for a drop-off in the number of California hospitals caring for dental patients with special needs.
Doctors Academy Addresses Lack of Diversity Among Providers in Central Valley
A new program for high school students is designed to provide an educational pipeline to increase the number of homegrown health care workers in the Central Valley.
How Budget Cuts Hit the Health System
Several health care budget decisions will be made this week in Sacramento, including Medi-Cal provider rates, home health care worker overtime and mental health program funding. One legislator breaks down how those decisions might have long-term effects.
Home Care Providers, Recipients Make Push To Be Included in Budget Deals
Budget decisions are about to be made in Sacramento. Home health care workers and the people who rely on them gathered in the capitol to make sure their funding requests are heard.
Study Could Bolster Soda Warning Bill
High levels of sugar are not the only problem in soda and other sweetened drinks — but also the type of sugar in those drinks, according to a study from University of Southern California researchers.
Soda Warning Bill Barely Clears Hurdle
The state Senate’s passage last week of a bill calling for warning labels on sugary drinks is one in a long line of attempts — some successful, some not — to pass legislation to ease the rising rates of obesity and diabetes in California.
They Annoy Patients. They Scare Docs. But Narrow Networks Might Be a Good Thing.
With legal challenges, new market entrants and recent CMS regulations, narrow networks may be a little less narrow in year two of Affordable Care Act enrollment. But there are benefits to limited networks, experts say, and patients and doctors’ frustrations with the model may have been overstated.
Hospital Funding Measure Won’t Qualify in Time for November 2014 Ballot
A ballot initiative designed to make a hospital fee and funding mechanism permanent probably will have to wait till 2016 because the verification process for petition signatures liekly will take too long for the measure to make it to the ballot this year.
Months After Applying, Legions Stuck Waiting For Medi-Cal
“One stop shop.” “No wrong door.” State officials have used those phrases since last year to describe the new, easier, more efficient Medi-Cal application process. But something happened between their mouths and reality: “A hole fell out of the middle of the system,” says Jen Flory, senior attorney for the Western Center on Law & […]