Latest California Healthline Stories
Changing the Way Hospitals Do Business
One of the tenets of health care reform is to provide incentives to raise quality, improve outcomes and lower costs.
That idea is what’s behind about $3.3 billion in federal incentives dangled in front of public hospitals in California as part of the Medicaid waiver deal completed late last year. A new policy brief from the California Association of Public Hospitals details some of those changes.
The deal in the waiver agreement — the Delivery System Reform Incentive Program — is a pay-for-performance initiative for 21 public hospitals in California. That change in performance is measured by meeting a myriad of different milestones.
Basic Care, Medical Home, Home Care Act All Clear First Hurdle
A number of health care-related bills just met the deadline for passage out of house of origin. In a way, it’s a litmus test for whether or not bills have the political capital to become law, and quite a few health proposals made the initial cut.
The bills recently passed by the Assembly now head to the state Senate, and vice versa. Beyond the high-profile AB 52 by Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles) to regulate health insurance rate hikes, there were several health-related bills that moved on:
Health Officials, Public Hospitals at Odds Over Fee
The state says it’s just shifting money around, and that everyone benefits from new federal financing tools known as CPEs — certified public expenditures.
Under the recent federal Medicaid waiver, California can get up to $400 million in federal funds for state-only programs, according to Toby Douglas, director of the California Department of Health Care Services. These are programs licensed or certified by the state providing care and services to a designated population, such as adult day health care or developmental disability care. Public hospitals provide some state-only services, and submit these certified public expenditures, or CPEs, to get federal matching funds.
“But we don’t have enough state-only expenditures, and public hospitals have expenditures beyond what they can get from the waiver,” Douglas said. “We can roll over that money … they get more federal funds, and we get to use their excess certified public expenditures to reach the $400 million mark.
Payment, Practice, Patient Protection Collide
It looked like one of those slam-dunk legislative proposals. SB 173 by Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) cruised through the Senate Committee on Health on a 7-1 vote.
No one expected much opposition in a hearing yesterday before the Senate Committee on Appropriations. In fact, committee chair Christine Kehoe (D-San Diego) started to move along after the bill’s presentation without asking if anyone was opposed to the bill. “Oh, there is opposition?” she asked.
There was.
Time is Now To Reverse Hepatitis Trend, Experts Say
For years, advocates have been fighting hepatitis in relative quiet — but that may be changing, according to Rachel McLean.
“Last week the federal [Department of] Health and Human Services released its hepatitis action plan,” McLean said. “For HHS to say we’re going to do something, well, that’s a big deal.”
McLean is the hepatitis prevention coordinator for the state Department of Public Health, and she was part of a panel discussion yesterday in Sacramento. The event was part of the California Health Policy Forum, put on by the Center for Health Improvement and funded in part by the California HealthCare Foundation. CHCF is the publisher of California Healthline.
Amid Clinic Closures, One Health Care Center Keeps Expanding
State budget shortfalls, declining Medi-Cal reimbursement and recent federal cutbacks have led many community clinics in California to the financial edge. But the Sacramento Native American Health Center has bucked that trend and is expanding at a rapid rate — and it may offer a new model of care to handle the growing patient load in California.
Riverside Hopes New Policies Will Help Curb Sprawl, Obesity
Riverside County’s Public Health and Planning departments have joined forces to develop a large-scale approach that will guide future community development. The new policies set the stage for communities that will be walkable and bikeable with convenient access to nutritious food.
Physicians Scarce for Latinos in California
There are two main hurdles to getting quality health care among the Latino population, according to David Hayes-Bautista, founding director of UCLA medical school’s Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture.
Access is the No. 1 issue and linguistic competency is No. 2, Hayes-Bautista said.
Hayes-Bautista was part of a forum convened last week in Sacramento by the Latino Community Development Foundation — a forum that included Health and Human Services Secretary Diana Dooley and a number of state Senate and Assembly members.
Counties Face New, Expanded Health Care Challenges
California counties’ role in delivering health care using a patchwork of federal and state programs and funding is about to become more complex, if not more difficult, because of health care reform and budget constraints. We asked stakeholders and experts how policymakers could best navigate new waters.
Clearing a Path Through the Smog
The thumbnail summary of California’s air quality is abysmal. Los Angeles and Bakersfield have the worst air quality in the nation, according to the annual State of the Air report by the American Lung Association. On the county grading scale, 37 of California’s 58 counties get an F in air quality.
“California is unique,” Bonnie Holmes-Gen of the American Lung Association of California said, in explaining why air pollution is so bad in this state.
“Our large population, combined with our sunny days,” help foul the air, she said. “Plus you see a lot of diesel emissions at our ports, and a lot of diesel because of our agriculture. There are geographic elements, where the San Joaquin Valley is like a big bowl that holds the smog. And of course, there has been a large increase in vehicle miles traveled. People do love their cars in California.”