Dignity Restored

Wednesday, August 18, 2021

We posted recently about a dispute between Anthem BlueCross (which administers UC's PPO health plans) and Dignity Health that threatened to interrupt certain services to some PPO participants. The Sacramento Bee now carries a story saying the contract dispute has been resolved:

Leaders of Anthem Blue Cross said Tuesday that they have reached an agreement with Dignity Health on a new contract, settling a disagreement that had severed relationships between thousands of Californians and their Dignity doctors.

The two health care companies were unable to come to an agreement over fee increases, and Dignity informed Anthem it was terminating the contract as of July 15. However, many customers said they did not receive letters notifying them of that split until days later.

John Pickett, regional vice president of provider solutions at Anthem Blue Cross, said the new agreement is retroactive to July 15, so Anthem members will not have to pay the higher out-of-network rates required when they see a provider that does not contract with the insurance carrier...

F u l l s t o r y a t h t t p s : / / w w w . s a c b e e . c o m / n e w s / l o c a l / h e a l t h - a n d medicine/article253552414.html.

* https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2021/08/no-dignity.html.

Watch the Regents' Health Services Committee of Aug. 18, 2021

Thursday, August 19, 2021

The Regents' Health Services Committee met yesterday at one of its off-cycle meetings. As always, we preserve the recording of the session indefinitely since the Regents - for some reason - delete their recordings after one year. You can find the link a the bottom of this posting.

As has been the case since the pandemic began, the meeting was by Zoom. Regent Pérez at one point said he hoped the October (off-cycle) meeting of the committee would be back to an in-person format. Recent events - that were discussed at the committee would seem to make that change unlikely, however.

The public comment period had only one speaker, an anti-abortion proponent. There was general discussion of the coronavirus pandemic including the likelihood there would be booster shots. (Yours truly, by the way, wonders exactly how a requirement for a third shot would be incorporated into campus mandates for students, faculty, and staff to be "fully" vaccinated will be implemented.)

For UCLA viewers, the main item of interest on the agenda was a presentation on a new UCLA homeless health program. You can find it at approximately 3:20 to 3:52 in the recording below. The new program launches on October 1, and it features such things as links to the Venice Family Clinic and others and mobile vans for "street medicine."

As blog readers will know, there is another off-cycle Regents meeting today. You can watch the Health Services session at the link below:

https://archive.org/details/regents-health-services-committee-8-18-2021.

Alternative:

h t t p s : / / a r c h i v e . o r g / d e t a i l s / r e g e n t s - h e a l t h - s e r v i c e s - c o m m i t t e e - 8 - 1 8 2021/Regents+Health+Services+Committee+8-18-2021.mp4.