- Doctors fear health overhaul may backfire for poor on Medi-Cal, By Rob Hotakainen, January 16, 2010, Sacramento Bee: “Paul Phinney is happy to be working as a pediatrician in Sacramento these days, with a historic health care bill on the horizon. For starters, he says it’ll be easier to treat patients if Congress makes it illegal for insurance companies to deny treatment for pre-existing conditions. And he says it would be good if those companies could no longer place a cap on how much they’ll pay for medical services. ‘It’s a very exciting time to be part of medicine,’ he said. But he and many other California doctors worry that the soon-to-be-finalized health care bill could backfire and actually make things worse, making it more difficult for the poor to find doctors and sending more of them to emergency rooms. They say that will happen if Congress does not increase reimbursement rates for doctors who treat patients under the state’s Medicaid program…”
- Feds reject Utah’s low Medicaid pay for dentists, By Lisa Rosetta, January 13, 2010, Salt Lake Tribune: “A federal agency has rejected the low pay that Utah allots to dental providers who see Medicaid patients because the rates are too low to guarantee pregnant women and children’s access to services. Last session, state lawmakers took back a one-time 24 percent jump in pay that dentists received in 2008, on top of rolling back their 4.5 percent cost of living raise. Dentists said they couldn’t keep their doors open if they saw Medicaid patients at the lower rate. Some limited the number of Medicaid patients they accept; others stopped seeing them or threatened to do so if the Legislature didn’t take action…”
Day: January 19, 2010
Unemployment Benefit System – California
Stalled upgrade delays unemployment checks, By Tom Abate, January 19, 2010, San Francisco Chronicle: “At a time when nearly 800,000 jobless Californians depend on timely unemployment checks, the state has been sitting on more than $50 million in federal funds set aside in 2003 to upgrade antiquated computer and call center systems designed to make the Employment Development Department more responsive. State officials acknowledge that this delay helps explain why it took the department five weeks last year to resume payments to Californians who had exhausted their benefits before Congress authorized a payment extension in November. Ironically, the department already has begun to spend some of the $60 million in federal funds that it received just last spring to modernize other unrelated portions of the ’70s-era software that runs the state’s unemployment systems…”
Hybrid Welfare System – Indiana
Hybrid welfare system to roll out, By Ken Kusmer (AP), January 19, 2010, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette: “Indiana’s human services agency is expected to roll out its hybrid welfare intake program, aimed at correcting problems that arose when it tried to privatize the system, in 10 southwestern counties next week. The Family and Social Services Administration had said that it would roll out the hybrid system in the counties around Evansville in January, and last week spokesman Marcus Barlow said the change probably would occur during the last week of the month. Documents obtained by The Journal Gazette in December indicated Vanderburgh County – an early participant in privatization in 2007 and a squeaky wheel in bringing problems to light – was being considered as the first area to launch the new system. Under the hybrid system, which follows the state’s aborted effort to turn welfare intake over to private vendors, many state and private caseworkers will shift from call centers into local offices to give people more personal contact with those making decisions about their food stamps, Medicaid and other benefits…”