Posts Tagged: physicians
Opinion
OPINION – Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) play an indispensable role in California’s health care system, particularly for underserved and rural communities where anesthesia access is critical, yet limited. For decades, California CRNAs have independently provided safe, cost-effective, and patient-centered anesthesia care—a policy reinforced by state statute and upheld by court rulings and regulatory guidance.
News
Following the June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision, California lawmakers passed a large number of bills to protect the right to safe and legal abortion. But expanding abortion access also required amending the state’s complex scope of practice laws.
Opinion
OPINION: It’s never a good idea when insurers cut costs by interfering in the decision-making process between patients and their doctor. But during a national pandemic, it’s a particularly bad idea. I am thinking specifically of an insurance strategy called step therapy.
News
As California contends with a shortage of primary care doctors, some legislators are pushing to have nurse practitioners fill in the gaps. Assembly Bill 890, which is now headed to the Senate, would remove the requirement that nurse practitioners practice under a physician’s supervision.
Opinion
OPINION: In 1911, California passed a constitutional amendment that created the foundation for our modern system of workers’ compensation, and since that time numerous laws have been passed to keep California at the forefront of worker protection. Yet, today, California is failing the workers that it is supposed to protect, and they sometimes must wait months, if not years, to get the care and coverage that they are entitled to.
Opinion
OPINION: By including $3 million in annual funding for Alzheimer’s research in the budget, Gov. Gavin Newsom showed he is willing to take action on issues important to California’s fast-growing aging population. Still, the move is only the beginning of what must be a much larger effort to keep pace with our older population’s future needs.
News
A sweeping new California Supreme Court ruling restricting who is an independent contractor is shaking up an exceptionally diverse range of industries. The ruling, issued in April, affects an estimated 2 million independent contractors working in healthcare, beauty salons, gig economy jobs like Uber and Lyft, journalism, music, real estate, education, financial planning, agriculture, construction, technology, insurance, transportation and more
Opinion
OPINION: California is facing a crisis in our healthcare workforce. We lack enough primary care providers. This issue, combined with a wave of physicians getting set to retire and an expanding aging population, has created a perfect storm particularly in our rural and underserved communities.
News
California is facing a primary care physician shortage, and one of the only solutions to address it is sitting on the edge of a fiscal cliff. The Teaching Health Center program, which places new resident physicians in underserved communities, will lose federal funding unless Congress acts to reauthorize it by Sept. 30.
Opinion
OPINION: The California Assembly is currently considering a bill, Senate Bill 790, which would put in place severe restrictions around gifts or other financial benefits that pharmaceutical companies can give to medical professionals as part of marketing activities. Not only will the bill limit physician access to important information about new treatments, but it also insults the integrity of every physician practicing in California and is a threat to the patient-physician relationship.
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