Archived California Healthcare News

The California Department of Insurance has teamed up with Consumer Reports and the UC San Francisco to launch a new consumer-oriented website for patients to obtain cost information about the care they receive. The website, California Healthcare Compare, aggregates quality data from the Integrated Healthcare Association, a variety of health insurers and other parties. The site, which was funded by a $3.9 million federal grant under the Affordable Care Act, provides a range of what an insured patient would pay for more than 100 different procedures by 22 different geographic regions, and rates individual providers on quality and outcomes on a five-point scale. Officials said that the website covers about 75% of the care paid for by insurers and patients in California.

Although Prime Healthcare walked away earlier this year from a deal to acquire the Daughters of Charity Health system, it has yet to let go. The Ontario-based Prime has sued California Attorney General Kamala Harris, claiming she entered into a scheme with the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West to ensure Prime would not be able to acquire the six-hospital Daughters of Charity chain. The suit was filed on Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

Almost one in every three adults in Kansas and Missouri is not just overweight but obese, according to a new report from the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. \"The State of Obesity: Better Policies for a Healthier America\" notes that obesity rates nationwide have stabilized, but at a level that’s much too high.

In anesthesiology, it pays – literally – to be a man. At least, that’s what’s suggested by a study examining this specialty’s demographics and salaries in 2007 and again in 2013. The study, by the RAND Corp., a nonpartisan research institute, was published Thursday in the journal Anesthesiology.

One of California\'s largest district hospitals has filed a lawsuit against Los Angeles County, claiming it has been denied millions of dollars of special property tax money to help operate its trauma care center. The suit, filed by Antelope Valley Hospital in Los Angeles County Superior Court, claims that the $1 million a year it is receiving in public tax funds is insufficient for the job. Instead, the 420-bed facility wants $10 million a year, and another $100 million in back payments.

The Department of Managed Health Care has levied a total of $140,000 in fines against Blue Shield of California for mishandling enrollee grievances. The fines were related to numerous incidents that occurred between 2011 and 2013.

Robert Anderson may know more about death than anybody else in the United States. Anderson is chief of mortality statistics for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Information about death flows into his suburban Maryland office from all over the country, detailing not only how many Americans have died—2,596,993 in 2013—but the causes of those deaths. Researchers use the information to learn what kills Americans, and public officials use it to craft policies to improve health and safety.

Time for a pop quiz: When it comes to healthcare, what’s the difference between cost, charge and payment? “Does anyone want to take a stab at it?” Sara-Megumi Naylor asked a group of first-year residents at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

The Department of Managed Health Care has issued $120,000 in fines to five separate health plans in connection to a 2012 incident where the Accountable Health Care IPA was using a non-physician to make medical treatment decisions. Molina Healthcare, Health Net, L.A. Care Health Plan and Anthem Blue Cross of California had been ordered to stop using Accountable Care’s utilization review services after the incident, when it was discovered that the son of Accountable Care’s CEO was making decisions to approve or deny medical care to their enrollees