Medicaid Managed Care’s Impact On Safety-Net Clinics In California

Medicaid Managed Care’s Impact On Safety-Net Clinics In California was published in the January/February 2000 issue of the journal Health Affairs. The report provides an overview of Medi-Cal Managed Care in California, and its effects on community health clinics, and related issues. In order to better understand the impact that the Medi-Cal managed care program has had on California safety-net providers, the Kaiser Family Foundation supported Andrew Bindman, M.D., from the University of California at San Francisco, to study and analyze current trends in Medi-Cal and their effect on safety-net providers. For copies of the reprinted article, please call the Kaiser Family Foundation Publications Request Line at 1-800-656-4533 (ask for document #1576).

• Fact Sheet

A Risky Proposition? Risk-Bearing and Solvency in California’s Medical Groups — Policy Brief

A Risky Proposition? Risk-Bearing and Solvency in California’s Medical Groups is an 8-page policy brief to provide information about medical groups in California, including a discussion on risk-bearing, solvency, and proposed regulatory approaches. The brief includes a variety of perspectives presented by speakers at a California Health Policy Roundtable held in Sacramento, California on July 20, 1999.

• Roundtable

The HPV Test: Coming Soon to a Doctor’s Office Near You? Is It Better than the Pap Smear for Detecting Cervical Cancer?

The most common sexually transmitted disease in the U.S. is one most Americans have never heard of: the human papillomavirus or HPV, the cause of almost all cervical cancer. Now that leading medical journals report that high-risk strains of HPV can be detected, there is debate over the best approach to fighting cervical cancer. Could widespread HPV testing reduce the incidence of cervical cancer, or is the Pap smear still the best first line of defense? What can Americans do to protect themselves and their partners from this STD? And, how will health plans deal with HPV screening – and the women who test positive?

Dr. Mark Schiffman of the National Cancer Institute, and Dr. Thomas C. Wright, Jr., Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, who are the lead authors of articles in the Journal of the American Medical Association about HPV testing, along with other experts, addressed these issues and more at an Emerging Issues in Reproductive Health Briefing. New data on public awareness and knowledge about HPV was also released.

• Agenda

• Resource List
• HPV Fact Sheet
• STD Fact Sheet
• Chart Pack

, prepared by InterStudy Publications with the support of the Kaiser Family Foundation provides information about Preferred Provider Organizations (PPOs), including the key differences between PPOs and other health plan types. The report is based on in-person interviews with 25 executives PPOs and written survey responses from 19 of their respective firms, representing as much as 80 percent of the PPO industry. The report also provides information on the different services offered by PPOs; savings from use of discounted providers; and PPO use of managed care activities such as financial incentives for patients to use network providers and prior approvals for care.

• Report

Are Schools Just Saying No

The HPV Test: Coming Soon To A Doctor s Office Near You?

Is It Better Than the Pap Smear for Detecting Cervical Cancer?

Thursday, February 17, 9:30 – 11:30 a.m.

Broadway Millennium Hotel

44^th and Broadway, New York City

9:30 a.m.Registration

9:50 a.m.Welcome/Introductions

• Tina Hoff, Director of Public Health Information and Communications, Kaiser Family Foundation, will provide an overview of the most common sexually transmitted disease in the U.S. — HPV (human papillomavirus) — and present findings of how much the American public knows about it.

10:00 a.m.Understanding The Latest Medical Research: What is the New Data on HPV Testing and Cervical Cancer, and What Does it Mean for American Women?

• Mark Schiffman, MD, MPH, Chief of the Interdisciplinary Study Section, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute
• Thomas C. Wright, Jr., MD, Director of Gynecologic Pathology, Dept. of Pathology, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons

These leading experts in the field of cancer research, published in the January 2000 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, will detail recent findings from their two studies on the use of the HPV DNA test to screen for cervical cancer. They will discuss what impact these findings may have for American women, particularly those most at risk for cervical cancer, as well as whether the HPV test is a better alternative to the Pap smear.

10:45 a.m.From Research to the Real World:

• J. Thomas Cox, Executive Medical Director, American Social Health Association, National HPV and Cervical Cancer Resource Center, and Director, Student Health Services GYN Clinic, University of California at Santa Barbara, will describe the public education challenges presented by HPV, in particular what sexually active people can do to prevent transmission of the sexually transmitted disease.

• Robin Richman, MD, FACOG, Vice President and Medical Director of Quality Improvement/Women’s Health, Tufts Health Plan, and Chair of the American Association of Health Plans Women’s Health Task Force

, will talk about the health insurance industry s response to advances in screening techniques, in terms of covering test costs and concerns about women obtaining medical insurance if they have a pre-existing condition such as HPV.

11:15 a.m.Questions and Answers

The Public’s Health Care Agenda for the New President and Congress

This survey captures the public’s attitudes regarding the health care agenda for President Obama and the new Congress in 2009. It assesses the relative priority placed on health care by the American public as part of addressing the economic recession and as a large scale reform issue. The public’s priorities for health care reform and their views on a range of other health policy issues are presented.

News Release

Chartpack

Toplines

The survey was released at a January 15, 2009, briefing.

Agenda

Speaker Biographies

Webcast of briefing

provides an overview of recent data and research on the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on African Americans. The Key Facts document also presents trends in the HIV/AIDS epidemic over time, racial differences in the access to and quality of HIV/AIDS services and includes the attitudes toward and perceptions of HIV/AIDS by race.

• Report

Extending a drug benefit to Medicare beneficiaries has been a highly publicized issue in recent months. To address the question of how to finance and administer such a benefit while controlling its cost, some have proposed using pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs)–companies that administer pharmaceutical benefits for health plans, HMOs, and employers while managing drug utilization and obtaining discounts from both retail pharmacies and manufacturers. Most recently, the Clinton Administration introduced a proposal for a Medicare Part D benefit that would use a PBM-focused approach and other private-sector best practices. This report examines the role of PBMs and considers the implications of using PBMs to manage a Medicare drug benefit, based on a review of the literature and interviews with senior executives in the PBM industry and pharmacy benefit consultants.

This report analyzes the administrative and implementation issues associated with expanding tax subsidies for the purchase of private health insurance.

• Tax Reform to Expand Health Coverage

Findings from a National Survey

This national telephone survey of low-income parents represents a major effort to better understand the barriers to Medicaid enrollment and to test the usefulness of ideas to facilitate enrollment in a quantitative way. Examining both parents of uninsured children who appear eligible for Medicaid and parents with children currently enrolled in Medicaid, the survey findings present: a profile of low-income, Medicaid-eligible children; parents’ Medicaid knowledge and perceptions; key barriers to enrollment; and preferred strategies for improving enrollment. The findings suggest that most low-income parents value the Medicaid program and want to enroll their children. However, gaps in knowledge of program eligibility and information and a difficult enrollment process prevent many parents from successfully enrolling their children.

• Report