Archived California Healthcare News

Family medicine doctors are joining forces to win a bigger role in healthcare – and be paid for it. Eight family-physician-related groups, including the American Academy of Family Physicians, have formed Family Medicine for America’s Health, a coalition to sweeten the public perception of what they do and advance their interests through state and federal policies.

A ballot proposition that would give the California Insurance Commissioner more authority to regulate health insurance rates has an uncertain future when it goes to voters next month, but Commissioner Dave Jones is apparently still able to use his office to soften payer moves to raise rates. Just hours after Jones’ office denounced a move by Anthem Blue Cross of California to increase premiums for 120,000 enrollees in small group plans an average of 9.8%, the insurer backed off the plan, instead saying it would raise rates only an average of 7.8%. Jones had asked for an increase of 2.1% instead.

Aiming to contain healthcare costs, a growing number of employers and insurers are adopting a strategy that limits how much they’ll pay for certain medical services such as knee replacements, lab tests and complex imaging. A recent study found that savings from such moves may be modest, however, and some experts question whether “reference pricing,” as it’s called, is good for consumers. The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), which administers the health insurance benefits for 1.4 million state workers, retirees and their families, has one of the more established reference pricing systems.

Parents of adult children with developmental disabilities say state officials are breaking a provision in deliberations that led to legislators last year agreeing to include Medicaid-funded home- and community-based services for the developmentally disabled in the state’s KanCare program. “I have one thing I want to say to the (Kansas) Department for Aging and Disability Services: ‘Liar, liar, pants on fire,’” said Susan Jarsulic, whose 35-year-old daughter, Jayne, has severe physical and developmental disabilities.

The California Office of the Patient Advocate (OPA) issued its annual report card on the state\'s health plans on Wednesday, realigning the release of such data so that consumers can use it to selected plans during the open enrollment period that begins next month. Elizabeth Abbott, the OPA\'s director, said the report cards contained 2,000 different data points on the state\'s largest HMOs, PPOs and medical groups.

Betty Ford Survey Says Pain Patients Want To Give Up Medications

A new survey by the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation in Rancho Mirage indicates that many Americans with chronic pain are struggling with opioid painkiller prescriptions that do not work.

A battle is brewing in Ohio. University Hospitals Chief Executive Officer Tom Zenty warned a Cleveland audience that the state’s Medicaid expansion may not be permanent. “In July of next year, if there is no intervention, Medicaid expansion in the state of Ohio disappears,” Zenty said, during a recent panel discussion.

Californians and Americans as a whole may have more access to healthcare services as the result of the Affordable Care Act, but they are also slowly drowning in medical debt. A new study by NerdWallet concludes that Americans have been squeezed by the double whammy of the Great Recession and continually rising prices for medical services. The San Francisco-based healthcare finance research firm came to this conclusion by crunching data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and other federal data, as well as commissioning a poll that was conducted on its behalf by Harris Interactive.

As the outbreak of Ebola has impacted the United States, Kaiser Permanente is trying to help contain the epidemic at its source. The Oakland-based Kaiser has donated a total of $1 million to two healthcare relief organizations working in West Africa: Doctors Without Borders and the International Medical Corps. Both received grants of $500,000 apiece.