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California officials recently agreed to give new parolees a 60-day supply of their prescriptions and promised to replace lost medical equipment in the month after they’re released from prison. The state also agreed to submit Medi-Cal applications on their behalf at least 90 days before they are released.
When Medi-Cal beneficiary Lloyd Tennison moved last year from Contra Costa County to San Joaquin County, he was bumped off his managed care plan without notice before his new coverage took effect. His case highlights a chronic issue in California’s fragmented Medicaid program.
Annie Malloy, of San Diego, is among the first to receive a new housing move-in benefit from Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program. It’s an effort to help homeless and near-homeless people who might otherwise rack up huge medical bills.
California Healthline has learned that a coalition of doctors, hospitals, insurers, and community clinics want to lock in a tax on health insurance companies to draw in extra Medicaid funding. It also wants to make the tax permanent.
As hospitals squeeze Democratic leaders in Sacramento for more money, health care finance experts and former state officials warn against falling for the industry’s fear tactics. They point to healthy profits and a recession-era financing scheme that allows rich hospitals to take tax money from poorer ones.
California’s safety-net health program has resumed annual eligibility checks after three years, which means beneficiaries will need to provide updated personal information to maintain coverage. Here’s what to watch for.
A Medi-Cal patient illustrates how early schizophrenia treatments can yield big benefits. Advocates want California to expand such services to more people living with severe mental illness, which they argue will not only improve lives but also save money over time.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s ambitious experiment in health care is supposed to cut costs as it fills the needs of hard-to-reach people. The program’s start is chaotic and limited, but it shows promise.
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared that California would cut ties with Walgreens after the company said it would not distribute abortion pills in some states. But federal rules make it difficult for the state to unwind its Medicaid prescription drug agreement, which paid Walgreens $1.5 billion last year.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is making a bold push for Medicaid health plans to provide more housing support. He argues it’s cheaper to pay for rent than to allow homeless people to fall into crisis, which requires costly care in hospitals, nursing homes, and jails.
The state wants to stop paying Kaiser Permanente for treating severely mentally ill Medi-Cal patients in Sacramento and Solano counties and force the counties to take on the task. The counties’ leaders say they can’t afford it.
Medi-Cal serves more than one-third of the state’s population — offering a dizzying range of care to a diverse population. In the new “Faces of Medi-Cal” series, California Healthline will assess the program’s strengths and weaknesses through the lives and experiences of its enrollees.
California has enrolled into Medi-Cal more than 300,000 older immigrant adults lacking legal residency since May, but the state doesn’t know how many more might be eligible. Community workers are now searching for them.
Nearly half a million Californians without legal residency make too much to qualify for Medicaid yet they can’t afford to buy coverage. A state lawmaker is proposing to open up the state’s health insurance exchange as a first step to providing them affordable insurance.
Rather than simply reward top-performing facilities, the state’s Medicaid program will hand bonuses to nursing homes — even low-rated ones — for hiring more workers and reducing staff turnover.
The nation’s largest Medicaid insurer denies wrongdoing after the California attorney general’s office investigated it for inflating prescription drug costs.
After the Department of Health Care Services canceled Medi-Cal contract awards under pressure from major insurers, some consumer advocates question the administration’s willpower to improve care in the safety-net program.
California state Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman of Stockton has been appointed chair of the Senate’s influential health committee. A licensed social worker, Eggman said she will make mental health care and homelessness front-burner issues.
KHN senior correspondent Angela Hart discusses how California’s big Medicaid experiment to bring social services to the sickest and costliest patients doesn’t help most patients.
KHN senior correspondent Angela Hart discussed the most pressing health care issues in California with the nonpartisan group Democracy Winters in mid-November, touching on a variety of issues, from the state’s effort to transform its Medicaid program to its plan to produce generic insulin.
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