Seven months after freezing new admissions to a program that screens low-income women for breast cancer, California’s Public Health Department is still spending money to educate those women about a service they can no longer receive. The department has contracts with nonprofit groups around the state to provide education and outreach about the program, known as Every Woman Counts. But while the state began blocking new admissions to the program on Jan. 1 to save money, it did not reduce spending or change the requirements in its contracts that inform women about the screenings and encourage them to get mammograms.
Author: Megan Baier
California is preparing for a major expansion of support and funding for promotores – grass roots health workers who work within their own communities to reach out to rural, remote and otherwise underserved populations. Federal health reform includes $15 billion for prevention programs, including promotores, and California will be competing for a share of that money.
The Elizabeth Center for Cancer Detection in Los Angeles — one of the oldest cancer screening clinics in California — plans to shut down today after treating its last patients. The center is a victim of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s decision to freeze enrollment in a cancer screening program for low-income women on Jan. 1 and pay for routine mammograms only for women after the age of 50. Those moves caused an abrupt drop in the Elizabeth Center’s patient load and revenues, which had already been strained as its costs exceeded what it was earning from the state.
Hundreds of California clinics that provide low-income women with free mammograms and cervical exams are fighting to stay open this summer because of changes in patient eligibility rules and a state budget that is already weeks late with no deal in sight. HealthyCal correspondent
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last year restricted eligibility and froze enrollment in a program that provides breast and cervical exams for uninsured women. Now Democrats in the Legislature are trying to restore the service.