Primary Care

RECENT POSTS

April 24, 2012 | 3:30 PM | By

Doctors Fall Short in Helping Seniors, Poll Reveals

(Photo: Kaiser Health News)

(Photo: Kaiser Health News)

Medicare provides free screening on more than a dozen primary care tests, but a new poll shows that seniors are not receiving the benefit. The poll comes from the John A. Hartford Foundation and looked at Americans age 65 and older.

The Foundation was interested in whether seniors had received seven services that would support “healthy aging” including:

  • an annual medication review
  • falls risk assessment
  • screening for depression
Kaiser Health News reported details of the poll’s findings: Continue reading →
FILED UNDER: You're the Boss, Medicare, Primary Care
March 14, 2012 | 11:51 AM | By

L.A. Health Care Director’s Vision Brings Change, Challenge

By Sarah Varney

Colleagues say Dr. Mitch Katz rides his bike everywhere, including to work and many appointments. (Photo: Michael Wilson)

Colleagues say Dr. Mitch Katz rides his bike everywhere, including to work and many appointments. (Photo: Michael Wilson)

It would be easy to confuse Dr. Mitch Katz with any other doctor at the Roybal clinic in East Los Angeles. His desk in a closet-sized, windowless office is littered with patient records, x-rays and cans of Diet Coke.

His every man demeanor belies his stature. In fact, he even rides his bike to work and many appointments.  But Mitch Katz is Director of Los Angeles County’s Department of Health Services, long one of the most beleaguered in the country. Katz oversees L.A.’s public hospitals and clinics, the place of last resort for millions of low-income Angelenos. He has 22,000 employees and a $3.7-billion dollar budget. When he arrived in Los Angeles last year after running San Francisco’s health department, he insisted on seeing patients one afternoon a week, a demand that struck many here as odd, if not impossible. How would Katz have time to treat patients with a system in ruin? Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Policy, Reform, Los Angeles Department of Health Services, Primary Care
February 20, 2012 | 10:24 AM | By

Lack of Primary and Preventive Care Sends Thousands to Hospital

By Bernice Yeung, California Watch

(Bastian: Flickr)

(Bastian: Flickr)

Better access to primary health care and prevention programs could have kept thousands of California adults out of hospitals, according to a new statewide analysis.

According to new data released last week by the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, there were more than 335,000 adult hospitalizations in California that could have been avoided if the patient had seen a doctor sooner.

According to the state agency, so-called “preventable hospitalizations” are an indication of systemic shortcomings related to access to quality primary care. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Policy, Preventable Hospitalization, Primary Care
November 9, 2011 | 3:15 PM | By

Walmart: Get Clothes, Food and… a Health Check Up?

(Illustration by Kaiser Health News from photo by Walmart via Flickr)

(Illustration by Kaiser Health News from photo by Walmart via Flickr)

Walmart, the retailing behemoth with nearly 3,500 stores in the U.S., is angling to get into the even more mammoth health care business.

NPR and Kaiser Health News obtained a 14 page document, a “Request for Information,” which indicates Walmart is looking for partners in ”becoming the largest provider of primary healthcare services in the nation.”

But, this afternoon, a Walmart executive said that the document had been “overwritten.”

You can listen to NPR’s story, as reported by KQED’s Sarah Varney, here.

Or you can read the Kaiser Health News story here.

FILED UNDER: Money, Primary Care