Author's posts
California Law Aims to Strengthen Access to Mental Health Services
The law doesn’t take effect until July, but its passage should force insurers to expand their rosters of therapists. Here’s how you can challenge your health plan’s mental health services until then.
Direct Primary Care, With a Touch of Robin Hood
Some doctors, sick of mainstream health care’s red tape, are finding refuge in practices that combine concierge medicine with charity care.
Wildfire smoke poses serious health hazard. But your indoor air can be kept clean.
Many options exist for cleaning the air in your home, depending on your circumstances and your budget.
Wildfire Smoke Is Here to Stay. Here’s How to Clean the Air Inside Your Home.
There are many ways to cleanse indoor air of dangerous smoke particles, which are particularly harmful to people with chronic respiratory and cardiac conditions. Some are expensive, but cheap alternatives exist.
California’s Reboot of Troubled Medi-Cal Puts Pressure on Health Plans
The nine commercial insurers in Medi-Cal must reapply by submitting bids for new contracts. The state hopes the process will improve care for low-income residents and tighten accountability, something critics say has been missing.
Providence-KP Team Up to Attract Patients in California’s Growing High Desert Region
Providence, the country’s 10th-biggest hospital chain, says it’s too expensive to upgrade an older hospital, so it will join forces with giant Kaiser Permanente to build a new one.
Effort to Decipher Hospital Prices Yields Key Finding: Don’t Try It at Home
Your dutiful columnist tried to make use of a federal “transparency” rule to compare the prices of common medical procedures in two California health care systems. It was a futile exercise.
Being Vaccinated Doesn’t Mean You Must Go Maskless. Here’s Why.
It won’t hurt to remain cautious, even as California reopens for business in response to mass vaccinations and diminishing cases of covid.
Can a Subscription Model Fix Primary Care in the US?
Medical subscriptions, a $199 million CEO payday and the race to fix primary care in the U.S. One Medical is betting big that a subscription model can fix primary care. But the firm faces competition from CVS, Target and large hospital systems.
Covered California Says Health Insurance Just Got Too Cheap to Ignore
Californians who passed up health coverage in the past may be pleasantly surprised by the lower prices available thanks to the new federal relief act.
