Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/medi-cal/)
A contract dispute between Magellan Healthcare and CalOptima, the county’s health plan for low-income and elderly residents, may have left some of CalOptima’s 710,000 patients without mental health care when, for nine days in July, Magellan refused to process Medi-Cal payment claims.
Physicians and advocates for low-income patients pried a $325 million raise from a reluctant Gov. Jerry Brown, who was skeptical that a doctor pay increase would translate to better care.
It’s the second time in five years that supervisors have remade board of directors of the $3.2 billion health plan for low-income, elderly and disabled residents, and solidified the medical industry’s control.
Nearly 2,000 pregnant women join the ranks of Covered California customers whose health plans have been automatically — and sometimes mysteriously — canceled.
More than 80 percent of California counties now provide at least some level of non-emergency medical care to poor undocumented immigrants. But Orange County is not one of them.
Orange County’s participation rate in a demonstration project that combines the resources and services for people dually eligible for Medi-Cal and Medicare is the lowest among the seven counties in the program.
The state had instituted raises in anticipation of increased workload due to Affordable Care Act. But the patients weren’t as sick as expected.
Orange County has joined a handful of other counties statewide in a demonstration project designed to enhance care for residents eligible for both Medicare and Medi-Cal.
The Medical Board of California’s years-long probe into a Santa Ana anesthesiologist’s prescribing of narcotics shows the need for reform.
Fear of deportation among families with mixed immigration status is hindering enrollment rates among Latinos.