When it comes to dental care, California is not serving vulnerable kids and families well. As a state, we need to commit to enacting solutions that will provide all children with better access to high-quality dental care.
Medi-Cal
California health officials are gearing up for the launch of a statewide screening effort that aims to help doctors measure children’s exposure to trauma and their risk of related health problems.
Starting Jan. 1, California will become the first state in the nation to reimburse health care providers who screen patients enrolled in the Medi-Cal program for “adverse childhood experiences” or ACEs.
As a pediatrician, I not only worry about the health of the children I care for, but also the health of their parents and caregivers. Unfortunately, disparities in the wellbeing of children in the United States are climbing.
Improving health equity for children should be among our highest priorities as a nation, because it will impact our future.
Across California and the country, families with children with complex medical needs struggle to find qualified nurses to care for them. Historically low pay rates for home health nurses, a lack of pediatric training for in-home situations, and a disjointed system for finding caregivers has left many families without the nursing care their children desperately need and are entitled to, experts said.
Should health plans do more to support parents in raising stable families?
That’s the recommendation from a coalition of child health researchers who are calling for an overhaul of part of the state’s Medi-Cal program.
At a time when a third of the state’s population relies on government-funded health care, most California counties are failing to apply for millions of dollars that could be used to broaden access to mental health care, an analysis by the California Health Report has found.
Almost 140,000 Latino children in California aren’t covered by health insurance, even though they’re eligible to enroll in Medi-Cal, the state’s safety-net health care program. Three quarters of the state’s uninsured Latino children ages 18 and under are missing out on health coverage, analysts at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research found.
Soon after news broke last week of the Trump administration’s finalized “public charge” rule, benefit enrollers at the Eisner Health community clinic in downtown Los Angeles started getting phone calls.
California advocacy groups are decrying a Trump administration proposal to change one of the measurements to determine the federal poverty level, a move that could force tens of thousands of state residents to lose their public benefits.
In 2009, as the Great Recession bore down on California, lawmakers cut coverage of eyeglasses, podiatry, speech therapy and other benefits from the state’s low-income health program. A decade later, California will restore many of the cuts.