California Health Blog  

You may have missed a big change coming to healthcare that can save you money. This fall a part of the new healthcare law will make certain preventive services free from copays and deductibles. As of September 23^rd, both copays and deductibles for preventive services (such as screenings for breast cancer, high cholesterol and certain sexually-transmitted diseases) will no longer be allowed. You may not see this change in your plan until the plan year renews January 1.

Eliminating these costs makes it easier to catch health problems early while they’re usually more treatable and less expensive to treat. You’ll actually get more for the price of your premiums, making California Health Insurance a better deal. Will insurers simply challenge this by raising premiums? Federal regulators are still deciding which rate hikes are going to be deemed unreasonable, but insurers could be prohibited from selling policies through the 2014 health insurance Exchanges if they are unreasonably greedy. Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to independent reviews of rate increases by the four top insurance companies in California, another insurer has withdrawn its proposal to increase premiums.  The second insurer, Aetna, withdrew its proposed rate hike after a regulator revealed that it contained major mathematical errors.

These top four insurers combined control 90 percent of the market and provide 2.5 million health plans to individuals.  Now is the time to lock in these lower rates before rate hikes are approved. Read the rest of this entry »

Health care reform may result in lower premiums for some people, according to a Stanford University School of Medicine associate professor and health economist. Jay Bhattacharya notes that, “It’s possible we will be paying slightly higher insurance rates (in 2014), but we won’t be paying for these people in other ways we are now.”

When insurers are blocked from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions, and are not permitted to charge escalated premiums, the demand for expensive emergency services should decrease. Currently, people who can’t afford or are denied coverage wait as their problems worsen until they require emergency interventions. Society pays for our system of last-minute care. Read the rest of this entry »

Having supported national healthcare reform, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has had his office staff working out details for healthcare reform in California with lawmakers. Some hope to devise a system to get Californians enrolled in health insurance in 30 minutes or less, rather than have them burdened with applications that take hours or days.

One of 20 bills that have already been introduced in the legislature would go beyond federal requirements, and force insurance companies to have the state approve increases in premiums. That would force insurance companies to justify why rate increases are needed. Read the rest of this entry »

With 8.2 million uninsured residents, California may show other states how to enact the new healthcare reforms. California legislators have already introduced more than 20 bills, and they will be voting on several this week.

One of the best-proposed changes will stop health insurance companies from denying coverage to people with preexisting conditions. These people could get health insurance through a newly created exchange. Read the rest of this entry »

Humana, which is among the largest national health insurance providers, offers services at CVS retail stores in California. Inside CVS stores, MinuteClinics provide easy and convenient health care services for Humana’s members and many others.

Health care prevention and wellness services are available at about 500 MinuteClinic centers across the U.S., including in California. These locations offer greater access to health screenings, on-site health coaching, and other health-related services. Read the rest of this entry »

The California health insurance Pay for Performance Program increased accountability, and created greater support for qualify improvement within healthcare organizations.

Patient experience scores have remained high with respect to care coordination, doctor-patient communication, helpful office staff, specialty care, and timely access to care. Pay for Performance shows that the right incentives really can give us a better healthcare experience. Read the rest of this entry »

Smarter use of imaging technology, like CT and MRI scans, can get you out of the hospital a day early. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital looked at 10,005 hospital admissions to find that performing CT or MRI scans on the day before or the day of admission saved patients an extra day in the hospital, compared to patients who had scans on day one or two after being admitted.

Computerized Tomography (CT) uses a series of X-ray views from different angles to create cross-sectional images. These can be used individually, or made into 3-D images to show what’s happening inside the body.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) yields detailed images of the inside of the body, but doesn’t emit radiation like X-rays and CT images. MRI uses magnetic fields and computer technology to show what happening inside the body. Read the rest of this entry »

Heart disease is the number one killer of women, and heart attacks are estimated to kill about 267,000 women a year. Yet, there seems to be a lack of awareness regarding how great this risk actually is.

When women in Northern California participated in a survey, more than 80 percent reported having at least one factor that put them at risk for heart disease. Three-fourths of these women, however, were not aware they were at risk for heart attack.

One of ways that health insurance can be used to prevent heart attacks is through preventive care. Blood tests can actually show when women are at high risk of heart disease. In the Archives of Internal Medicine, blood glucose levels were linked to increased risk of coronary heart disease for women, but not for men. Read the rest of this entry »

Looking at data from the National Trauma Data Bank, researchers found that Americans without health insurance are more likely to die after being admitted to a hospital for trauma care than people who have health insurance. In fact, uninsured adults were 25 percent more likely to die than insured adults. Researchers fear that this inequality accounts for an estimated 18,000 deaths a year.

Heather Rosen (M.D., M.P.H., of Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School) and her colleagues analyzed the records for 687,091 patients age 18 and older who were admitted to hospitals for trauma between 2002 and 2006. Trauma patients have life-threatening physical injuries, and the potential for shock and respiratory failure. Overall, the uninsured patients had the highest rate of death following hospital admission, even after controlling for age, race, severity and mechanism of injury, and sex. Read the rest of this entry »