Advocacy

The California Hospital Association asked CPA for assistance. Hospital leaders need to support staff health and wellbeing in the crisis. CPA’s Disaster Response Task Force Co-Chair Dr Shannon Suo recruited Peter Yellowlees, MD. Dr Yellowlees is Chief Wellness Officer for UC Davis Health System, an internationally acknowledged expert (see his [...]

The wildest scenario is to simply pull the plug on all legislation for 2020 which means that about 2,500 bills are shredded. Cancel committee hearings. No bills heard. Hello 2021.  Another option: legislative leadership will direct all legislators to reduce their bill loads to arbitrarily low numbers. Now, Assembly members [...]

Complicated, but new policy explicitly says that telephone and telehealth services are considered equivalent to in-person delivery allowing telephonic communication for delivery of services, whether those services are MediCal Managed Care, so-called Drug MediCal, Narcotic Treatment Programs, or Specialty Mental Health Services.

At press time the only development on emergency policy changes from either federal or state authorities seems to a requirement for the waiving of copays for coronavirus testing and related expenses like office visits. Critical issue for psychiatrists and other mental health professionals: will health plans, insurers or Medicare cover [...]

From Randall Hagar (CPA) - Important, Timely update. AB 890 (Wood) – granting nurse practitioners practice privileges independent of physician supervision – passed out of the Assembly, its house of origin, on February 3. Of 80 members of the Assembly 61 voted AYE, one voted NAY, and 18 abstained, moving it on [...]

On October 29, 2019, the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) and the Governor’s office released a proposal for broad delivery system and payment reforms across the Medi-Cal program. This expansion proposal, formerly known as CalAIM and now called Medi-Cal Healthier California for All, would address many challenges of [...]