California sets new time limits to see doctors

[The Straight Story]

California sets new time limits to see doctors


LOS ANGELES (AP) -- California is set to become the first state to limit the time patients must wait to see a doctor.

The Department of Managed Health Care plans to announce Wednesday there will soon be a limit of 10 business days on the appointment time to see a family practitioner. The deadline is 15 days to see a specialist and 48 hours for people seeking urgent care.

In addition, doctors' offices must return telephone calls within 30 minutes.

The time limits apply only to doctors in health maintenance organizations but officials said that will cover some 21 million Californians.

A 2002 state law mandated timely access to medical care, and the specifics were worked out in years of negotiations with doctors, hospitals, HMOs and consumer groups.

The rules will take effect next year.

http://www.news10.net/news/story.aspx?storyid=73572&catid=2

[Posteritatis]

1. I assume the 2002 law was watered down to meaninglessness; will this be any different? (nt)

[MiniMe]

2. 48 hours to see an urgent care doctor?

That doesn't sound right. Or are they separating urgent care from emergency care?

[Posteritatis]

6. The two terms are often distinct, yeah. (nt)

[mainer]

3. Gonna need a lot more doctors.

If the supply isn't there, it just isn't there. How do you make one doctor see a thousand patients a day?

[Xithras]

8. Yep, what happens if you have insurance but can't find a doctor?

Around where I live, the overwhelming majority of doctors aren't accepting new patients. My kids pediatrician, who is widely known to be one of the best in the area, has a one year waiting list to even get onto his patient list. My kids only get to see him because my oldest daughter was one of his first patients 14 years ago and still sees him, which has allowed us to get our other children under his care using a "sibling exemption".

I understand the sentiment behind the law, but I'd guess that the result will simply be doctors reducing their patient load even further, further limiting the ability of patients to see them.

[REP]

9. This law applies to HMOs

[Xithras]

11. And?

I'm on an HMO (Anthem), as are my children. With an HMO, you still have to select a PCP from their provider list. The PCP's get to determine whether or not they accept new patients. If your HMO has 20 PCP's available in your area, and only two are accepting new patients at open enrollment time, you're going to be stuck with one of those two. If none of them are accepting PCP's, you're stuck using whatever Urgent Care services are available on your plan until they either add more doctors or someones patient list opens up.

[ElmoBlatz]

4. How do you enforce this?

What if there aren't enough Doctors?

[REP]

10. State Board; the law applies to HMOs

I'm a CA Kaiser patient; I'm seen within 24 hours for an urgent appointment already (calls returned in 4 hours). HMOs are set up for this.

[ddeclue]

5. How long till some HMO sues them for interfering w interstate trade?

[Agent 007]

7. California Love

This type of progressive thinking is what drew me here over 30 years ago. I'm sure that all the obvious ?'s that are arising have been taken into account. More about this will be in the news probably after the rains pass through.