Swedish Firm Buys Two Outpatient Dialysis Centers From Scripps Memorial
A local health care advocate hopes recent legislative approval of a bill that extends coverage to parents of children enrolled in Healthy Families will secure some of the federal funding California stands to lose by the end of the month.
On Sept. 30, California could forfeit $590 million in federal funding for Healthy Families, which provides health insurance to 336,000 children in California, because the state will not have spent enough money on the program.
Dianne Williams, program manager of the San Diego Kids Health Assurance Network, which provides health insurance for indigent children, said she is disappointed the state could lose so much money considering the high number of uninsured children in California.
The program is flawed, she said.
The state should allocate money to individual counties based on the number of eligible children instead of having them compete for federal dollars, she said. Under the current program, the state can allocate money to counties based on their discretion, she said.
Out of the $590 million in federal funding, San Diego County received $390,000 since the program started in 1998, Williams said.
That has helped enroll 27,102 out of some 37,000 eligible children in the county, but other sources of funding were needed.
“There is not enough money to come to the local level to do outreach and keep children enrolled,” she said.
Previous barriers have been removed, including a 28-page application, which has been trimmed to four pages and not enough money allocated for outreach.
However, the program still needs major improvements.
She hopes a new initiative where local outreach workers go directly to the workplace of eligible families will increase enrollment of both parents and children, thus securing funding that otherwise would have been lost.
That’s because federal officials will allow states to apply for unused federal funds to extend coverage to adults, according to published reports.
Peter Anderson, deputy director of the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Program in Sacramento, which oversees Healthy Families, however, said the state is not at fault.
He said the problem is not “underenrollment,” (he said some 600,000 children are eligible) but “overfunding” by the federal government.
“If every one of these children were enrolled in one year, we would have to give back hundreds of millions of dollars,” Anderson said.
Assembly Bill 1015, authored by state Assemblyman Martin Gallegos, D-Baldwin Park, would offer insurance to 600,000 low-income parents who earn too much for Medi-Cal, the state’s health plan for the indigent, but not enough to buy health insurance.
Gov. Gray Davis has yet to sign the bill, but Williams is excited about the prospect. If parents were eligible, it is likely to boost the enrollment of children, she said.
“Parents often take children to the doctor more frequently (if they are insured),” she said.
The Healthy Families Program presently offers health, dental and vision insurance to 330,000 children whose parents make less than 2.5 times the federal poverty level.
Families pay between $4 and $27 a month in premiums to cover their children.
– – –
Scripps Goes Swedish: A unit of Swedish-based Gambro AB, Gambro Healthcare, Inc., which provides kidney dialysis services in the United States, said it bought two outpatient dialysis centers from Scripps Memorial , La Jolla Dialysis Center, partly owned by Scripps Health.
The dialysis centers are located in Encinitas and La Jolla, the company reported. According to a Scripps spokeswoman, Gambro also agreed to provide kidney dialysis services for all inpatients at Scripps’ five hospitals starting Sept. 5.
Until now inpatient kidney dialysis was provided by three providers, one of whom was Gambro, said Robin Liszweski, a spokeswoman for Scripps Health.
Details of the financial agreement were not released. Liszweski couldn’t say how much Scripps Health will save by consolidating its kidney dialysis services.
Chris Van Gorder, Scripps Health president and CEO, described the acquisition as positive.
“Now we will be able to better coordinate inpatient dialysis services to all of our Scripps hospitals and integrate this care with the services provided at outpatient facilities,” Van Gorder said.
