california healthcare foundation

While consumers may assume that high-touch smaller practices can provide better care, a new study suggests that larger integrated physician groups perform better on a series of standard quality measures. The study, which appears in the current issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, examined three preventative care measures and three chronic disease management measures. The researchers based their findings on data collected from 119 California groups contracting with PacifiCare …

While emergency department use by the uninsured remains an ongoing concern, a new study has found that ED overuse by insured patients is also a problem, at least in California. Researchers with the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF) found that patients with chronic illnesses, in particular, made medically unnecessary visits to emergency departments. These patients had a positive image of ED care, and felt they had nowhere else to go, given that their primary care doctor was closed or …

The California Healthcare Foundation releases two key reports on consumer healthcare technology. In the first, Health Care Cost Comparison Tools: A Market Under Construction, Forrester Research assesses the state of the tools currently available for healthcare and finds them rather lacking. It may be a little early to get worried, though. Employer demand and pressure from the consumer is creating tremendous incentives for firms to innovate and quickly. Forrester interviews health …

> Medicare Part D plans that drop drugs from their forumalaries will be required to continue providing them to existing customers who take the drugs. Article

> A Massachusetts-style health initiative would cost California about $9.4 billion, according to new research sponsored by the California HealthCare Foundation. …

A new study by the California Healthcare Foundation suggests that the biggest obstacle facing Medicare may be the general lack of awareness of the program and its various benefits. Apparently this was true even before Medicare Part D. More than 50 percent of Californians polled said they were unaware of other coverage options beyond basic Medicare. Amazingly, given the amount of noise surrounding Part D and the vast sums spent publicizing it, 60 percent say they were unaware that a prescription drug benefit existed. Period. Release

How ready is the nation's current prescribing infrastructure for the new technology of ePrescribing? The California HealthCare Foundation releases a new report on physical, financial and electronic underpinnings of the nation's current prescribing system, and how that infrastructure is being changed in preparation for ePrescribing. The report examines the development of a common infrastructure to support ePrescribing, headed by Surescripts and RxHub, which is rapidly improving …

Despite the increasing number of specialized engines active in the healthcare market place, Google remains the dominant force, writes Jane Sarason Kahn in a commentary for the California Healthcare Foundation. The vast majority of people using the Internet for healthcare information rely on Google, not on alternatives, she notes. That is as true of medical professionals as it is of the general public. The best sign of Google's effectiveness as a search tool for reliable and up to date …

> A third member of a Turkish family has died of bird flu in the town of Dogubeyazit, close to the Iranian border. The World Health Organization says a quarantine has been imposed on the town. These are the first bird flu deaths outside of Asia. Article

> Louisiana, which faces an uninsurance crisis after Hurricane Katrina, granted Affiliated Computer Services' a 20-month, $11 million contract extension to …

2005 was also the year in which the issue of hospital profits moved to the front-burner. Critics have always raised questions about how well doctors do and the money non-profit hospitals make. But this year events became far more serious as hospitals became the subject of several lawsuits for allegedly over-charging the uninsured. The first class-action suits, filed by Mississippi attorney Dickie Scruggs, were largely unsuccessful but did produce settlements in a number of cases where …

Despite regulations requiring hospitals to reveal prices and available charity care programs that provide discounted care, few hospitals do so. A study by the California Healthcare Foundation used mystery shoppers posing as uninsured patients to test hospitals on how well they live up to their obligations to provide information to customers who ask for it. Researchers were able to eventually get details on prices, although with some difficulty. Information about charity care programs was …