Posts Tagged: providers

News

Despite need, 15% fewer dentists serving Medi-Cal patients

A state review of a dental program that serves low-income Californians shows that significantly fewer dentists are accepting those patients, despite a surge in demand. According to the California Department of Health Care Services report, released July 1, the number of dentists accepting Medi-Cal patients fell by 14.5 percent between 2008 and 2013. That’s a loss of 1,354 providers for the Denti-Cal program, which is the dental portion of Medi-Cal.

Opinion

Mental illness: Treating patients as individuals

Close to 1.2 million adults in California live with serious mental illnesses. Each one of these cases is an individual—a parent or sibling or child—and no two people battling the same condition respond to the same treatment alike. Treating mental conditions—and in fact, treating all illnesses—has to be based on the fact that every person is unique and each patient requires therapies that suit him or her best.

Opinion

Critical priority: Dental care for low-income children

A youngster on his visit to the dentist. (Photo: Wavebreakmedia, via Shutterstock)

It is not often that dental professionals, health care providers, advocates, and legislators from both sides of the aisle all agree on an issue, but that is precisely what happened at a hearing this week on the state’s dental program for low-income children. Testimony and discussion honed in on the sobering results of a December 2014 state audit, which found that millions of children enrolled in Medi-Cal (California’s Medicaid program) were not getting the dental care they need.

Opinion

One immigrant’s quest to become a doctor

Last year, 7,308 students applied to The University of California at San Francisco medical school; 149 were accepted. But only one student in next year’s class is undocumented. That’s me. It’s the first time UCSF has ever accepted an undocumented student.

Opinion

Restore benefits for IHSS care workers

OPINION People who use IHSS, their advocates and the legislature asked: Where are the 40,000 new people ready, willing, qualified and able to do this work, at low pay, with no sick time, no vacation time and usually no health benefits – to take the places of the people already doing the work – some of them for decades?

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