Latest California Healthline Stories
Using Data to Simplify Medi-Cal Enrollment
A different approach to Medi-Cal eligibility renewal was floated yesterday at an informational seminar in Sacramento.
The idea is to limit the amount of forms and paperwork in renewing Medi-Cal eligibility. That might be accomplished in part by using statistical analysis of eligibility data to determine which beneficiaries don’t need to fill out new forms when their Medi-Cal benefits are up for renewal, said Stan Dorn, senior fellow at the Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
“The traditional way to handle Medicaid enrollment is very paperwork-intensive,” Dorn said. “The applicant fills out a piece of paper, supplies immigration documents and pay stubs. Then when eligibility is renewed, there’s a new form mailed to them, and they need current pay stubs and so on. … But now accessing that data and processing it is much cheaper and more reasonable and plausible than it was then.”
Packard Issue Brief Analyzes HF Transition
The state needs to be extremely careful with the children being phased out of the Healthy Families program because they’re in danger of losing access to care and services if that transition doesn’t go smoothly, according to a new issue brief from the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health, based in Palo Alto.
The issue brief follows on the heels of last week’s release of a study on the level of care and services provided to children with chronic illnesses, a study which ranked California near the bottom of the nation in several categories, including access to pediatric specialists.
The two issues — care of chronically ill children and implementation of the Healthy Families transition — are inextricably linked, said Edward Schor, senior vice president of programs and partnerships for the Packard Foundation.
Managed Care Tax Key in Healthy Families Shortfall
The Healthy Families program is short by almost $100 million, according to California health officials. That number will rise, officials said, because the current deficit only covers the program’s operation for January and half of December.
The problem is restricted to this year, however, since the roughly 860,000 children in Healthy Families — California’s federally subsidized Children’s Health Insurance Program — are being moved into Medi-Cal managed care plans. This year’s transition is planned in four phases. The first phase began Jan. 1.
“This (the funding shortfall) doesn’t have anything to do with the transition,” said Diana Dooley, Secretary of Health and Human Services. “It has to do with a failure to extend the MCO (Managed Care Organization) tax.”
Exchange Outreach Grants Worth $43 Million
Community groups are eligible for a total of $43 million in outreach grants, according to a plan released Friday by officials at Covered California, the new state’s new insurance exchange.
The goal of the outreach effort is for community groups to help get the word out about Covered California and the exchange is willing to pay for that help. About $40 million has been slated for individual coverage outreach, and another $3 million will go to help raise awareness of the Small-business Health Options Program, said Oscar Hidalgo, director of communication and public affairs at the exchange.
“The idea here is to reach out to communities through all kinds of organizations — community groups, faith-based groups, even city and county governments — so they can help raise awareness and provide some education on Covered California,” Hidalgo said.
Three Items on Special Session Agenda
Gov. Jerry Brown (D) yesterday called for an extraordinary legislative session on health care. In his State of the State speech Brown said the special session beginning Monday would “deal with those issues that must be decided quickly if California is to get the Affordable Care Act started by next January,” he said.
Brown also said the two options for Medi-Cal expansion — a state- or county-based approach — would not be decided as part of the special session.
“The broader expansion of Medi-Cal … is incredibly complex and will take more time,” Brown said. “Working out the right relationship with the counties will test our ingenuity and will not be achieved overnight.”
Health Care Stakeholders Await State of State, Special Session
The State of the State speech today by Gov. Jerry Brown (D) could kick off a flurry of health care activity in California.
The governor is expected to address the state’s decision to join the Medicaid expansion (Medi-Cal in California) in today’s speech. Two options proposed by Brown — county- and state-based plans — will be hashed out in the upcoming month or two, most likely during the Legislature’s special session on health care. State health officials have said the special session will be called by Brown by the end of January.
All of that has to be worked out relatively soon, according to Lucien Wulsin, executive director of the Insure the Uninsured Project.
Exchange Readies Its New Website
Covered California, the new brand name for the state’s health benefit exchange, will unveil its new website next week, according to Oscar Hidalgo, director of communication and public affairs at the exchange.
Hidalgo spoke at last week’s exchange board meeting, presenting one of the first building blocks of the marketing structure, an informational website.
“We are just about to launch a consumer-friendly website at the end of the month,” Hidalgo said. He said the unveiling is expected to be Wednesday or Thursday next week.
California Behind National Curve in Care for Chronically Ill Children
California is behind the national curve in caring for chronically ill children, according to a study released last week by the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health based in Palo Alto.
In particular, the coordination of care and access to specialists for California’s chronically ill children ranks among the worst six states in the nation, according to the study.
Covered California Lands $674 Million Federal Grant
Peter Lee could hardly contain himself yesterday.
“In 2010, California was the first state in the nation to say we want a state-based exchange. Then, earlier this month, the federal government approved our blueprint for the exchange,” said Lee, the executive director of the state’s health insurance exchange, Covered California.
“And now,” Lee said, “the feds have given us the resources we need to launch Covered California. This is an historic moment.”
How Will Covered California Service Centers Work?
Service centers — the places where California consumers will be directed through an 800 phone number and a web portal to get answers to their exchange and eligibility questions — are on the agenda at today’s meeting of the Health Benefit Exchange board.
Betsy Imholz, director of the West Coast office of Consumers Union, hopes her questions about service centers will be answered at today’s meeting.
Consumers Union is one of 13 advocacy groups that signed onto a recent letter to the exchange board, asking for assurance that the board hasn’t yet adopted a particular type of protocol model for the service centers, a protocol that Imholz said could discourage people from participating in the exchange.