Governor Brown signs CURES bill On Friday, Gov. Brown signed into law a bill that will provide funding for ongoing maintenance and staffing of the Controlled Substances and Utilization Review and Evaluation System (CURES). CURES is an online database that allows authorized users, including physicians, pharmacists, law enforcement and regulatory boards, to access information about a patient’s controlled substance prescription history. The new law will provide $9 million annually to maintain the database. The bill builds on funding provided through the 2013 budget to upgrade the system. The mission of CURES is to prevent pharmaceuticals ... October 1, 2013 General CURES, Public Health, Advocacy 0 0 Comment Read More »
Governor signs bill for Steve M. Thompson loan repayment program Governor Jerry Brown has signed a California Medical Association (CMA)-sponsored bill that will refine the eligibility criteria for a successful physician retention program, the Steven M. Thompson Physician Corps Loan Repayment Program. The program provides grants of up to $105,000 to physicians who agree to practice in medically-underserved areas of the state for at least three years. The program was created in 2002 under a bill sponsored by CMA. Since its inception, the program has awarded more than $17 million to over 220 individuals. Unfortunately, high demand for this program ... October 1, 2013 General Advocacy, Medical School Loans, Rural Health, Underserved Communities, Steven M. Thompson Loan Program, Young Physician 0 0 Comment Read More »
Don't miss out on increased Medi-Cal payments The California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) will soon be implementing rate increases for primary care physicians who treat Medicaid patients, as authorized under the Affordable Care Act. The increase also applies to services provided by physicians to Medi-Cal managed care patients. In order to see the bump in pay, providers must first attest to their eligibility. According to DHCS, less than half of eligible providers have completed the brief self-attestation process as of September 24. For purposes of this regulation, primary care is defined as family medicine, general ... September 30, 2013 General Health Care Reform, Insurance/Reimbursement, Medi-Cal, Affordable Care Act, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services 0 0 Comment Read More »
NEPO surveys L.A. physicians' immunization practices for adults Each year, vaccine preventable diseases impact the lives of millions of people in the United States. While there have been tremendous gains in vaccinating and preventing infectious diseases in children under the age of 18, due in part to the establishment of the Vaccines for Children Program in 1994, the complexity of reaching adults in need of recommended vaccinations often varies by age group, risk factors, existing medical conditions and medical insurance coverage. Last year, the California Medical Association Foundation’s Network of Ethnic Physician Organizations (NEPO), in collaboration with the ... September 25, 2013 General Immunization, NEPO, Network of Ethnic Physician Organizations, Public Health, CMA Foundation 0 0 Comment Read More »
FDA issues final guidance on mobile medical apps The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued final guidance for developers of mobile medical applications (apps) or software programs that run on mobile communication devices and perform the same functions as traditional medical devices. According to an agency press release, the FDA intends to focus its regulatory oversight on a subset of mobile medical apps that present a greater risk to patients if they do not work as intended. "Mobile apps have the potential to transform health care by allowing doctors to diagnose patients with potentially life-threatening conditions outside ... September 25, 2013 General Health Information Technology, Food and Drug Administration 0 0 Comment Read More »
DHCS to give webinar on Medi-Cal telehealth billing September 26 The Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) is hosting a telehealth billing webinar on September 26, from 10 to 11 a.m., to help Medi-Cal providers understand how to bill for telehealth services including reimbursement for transmission and facility fees. The webinar is open to all Medi-Cal providers. During the one-hour webinar, DHCS will guide providers in completing accurate claims for timely payment by: defining billable telehealth services; explaining how to fill out claims; listing HCPCS and CPT-4 codes used for telehealth billing; and sharing the updated telehealth section of the ... September 25, 2013 Medi-Cal Medi-Cal, Telemedicine, Webinars, Billing/Coding 0 0 Comment Read More »
CMA Foundation hires health policy leader to head exchange education program for providers The CMA Foundation has hired a health policy leader, Kena C. Burke, MPP, to manage a physician education program aimed at getting physicians up-to-speed on California’s health benefit exchange, Covered California. The program is expected to reach some 200,000 health care providers in the state. This program was made possible thanks to a $1.5 million grant, recently awarded jointly to the California Medical Association, the CMA Foundation, Latino Physicians of California, the California chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a number of county medical societies. As program director, Burke ... September 25, 2013 General Covered California, CMA Foundation, Health Insurance Exchange 0 0 Comment Read More »
Legislative update: Year of challenges, victories This year turned out to be a challenging year for the California Medical Association (CMA). We knew would be a historic year with the implementation of federal health care reform (ACA) and the wave of legislative freshman. We anticipated that many issues would arise as we helped to educate new legislators not only about the ACA, but about the many issues important to the physician community in California. CMA faced an unprecedented number of scope of practice expansion bills introduced in the Legislature. These scope of practice bills were painted ... September 25, 2013 General Advocacy 0 0 Comment Read More »
Medicare transition update September 16, 2013, marked the transition to the new Medicare Administrative Contractor, Noridian. In the first few days, the California Medical Association (CMA) heard about only minor problems with technology, including phone systems that went up and went down, a few issues with the online provider service tool and problems with printing of -PDF files from the Noridian website. Most issues have been resolved. Traffic on the Noridian Provider Contact Center phone line is high, as expected. Wait times are sometimes four to five minutes, but practices report satisfaction with ... September 25, 2013 Medicare Medicare, Noridian, Insurance/Reimbursement 0 0 Comment Read More »
Study finds that ACA Medi-Cal expansion could fuel ER use A retrospective study conducted by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) found that the number of visits to California emergency rooms (ERs) rose by 13.2 percent between 2005 and 2010, from 5.4 million to 6.1 million annually, with a significant 35 percent increase in the number of ER patients insured through Medi-Cal. The authors suggest that the Medi-Cal expansion under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) could further increase these numbers, as millions of additional patients become eligible for Medi-Cal in 2014. Researchers also found that Medi-Cal patients ... September 20, 2013 Medi-Cal Emergency Physicians, Emergency Rooms, Insurance/Reimbursement, Medi-Cal, Medi-Cal Cuts, Access to Care 0 0 Comment Read More »
