Archived California Healthcare News

Just weeks after a proposed acquisition of its hospitals by Prime Healthcare Services fell through, the Daughters of Charity Health System cut hundreds of jobs throughout the organization as a cost-cutting measure, it acknowledged on Wednesday. Altogether, 4% of Daughters of Charity’s workforce was laid off, the Los Altos Hills-based not-for-profit announced in a statement. That represents some 280 employees, with cuts coming throughout the organization.

The California Department of Public Health has announced that the outbreak of measles that began late last fall has concluded, but warned that cases could flare anew.

Fifteen states are betting they can convince more doctors to accept the growing number of patients covered by Medicaid with a simple incentive: more money. The Affordable Care Act gave states federal dollars to raise Medicaid reimbursement rates for primary care services—but only temporarily. The federal spigot ran dry on Jan. 1. Fearing that lowering the rates would exacerbate the shortage of primary care doctors willing to accept patients on Medicaid, the 15 states are dipping into their own coffers to continue to pay the doctors more.

The contractor who runs the Affordable Care Act application processing facility in Wentzville paid more than 13,000 hours of overtime to catch up with a backlog created by computer problems after the initial sign-up period, according to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. From May 1 through Aug. 15 last year, workers in the Wentzville facility logged 13,228.25 hours of overtime to process “backlogged inconsistency work,” according to a report by Serco Inc., the contractor running the facility for the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS.

Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones has been highly critical of a plan issued by the Covered California insurance exchange to cap the patient co-payments for pricey specialty drugs. The proposal issued by Covered California would place caps on co-payments ranging from $200 to $500, depending on what level plan they are enrolled in. However, those enrollees in the lowest-cost Bronze plan would pay a co-payment capped at $500 per month per specialty drug. Jones said on Wednesday that was unreasonable.

Enrollees in the Medi-Cal program said they were more likely to have issues finding a physician to provide care than Californians with other forms of insurance.

As a legislative session focused on the Kansas budget problems winds to a close with no decision on Medicaid expansion, a new study says some states that have expanded eligibility have seen their budget situations improve.

Nearly as old as the railroad that slices through this southern Illinois city just east of the Mississippi River, St. Elizabeth’s Hospital has been a downtown bedrock since 1875. Started by three nuns from a Franciscan order in Germany, the Catholic hospital still seeks “to embody Christ’s healing love” to the sick, the aged and the poor, according to its mission statement. It is so tied to the city that when the local economy slumped in 2009, the nonprofit St. Elizabeth’s gave $20 to every employee to spend on Main Street, sending hundreds of shoppers out to the mostly mom- and pop-owned stores.