The CDA (California Dental Association) and a coalition are looking into options to help overturn laws that are reducing return rates on Medi-Cal. The ninth circut court of appeals has been dealing with appeals to the Medi-Cal reimburstment rate since October of 2012, when a coalition which includes the California Medical Association, the California Dental Association, California Pharmacists Association, National Association of Chain Drug Stores, California Association of Medical Product Suppliers, AIDS Healthcare Foundation and American Medical Response. This was in response to Last spring of 2011, when the California legislature passed and Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 97, which included a 10% reimbursement rate reduction for pharmacists, doctors, dentists and other providers for Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program.

As of currently, these cuts are effecting patients. The pharmacists got it the worst, with many medicines having to be at cost to simply allow patients to be able to afford them. These cuts will have an even greater negative impact on vulnerable Californians if implemented, as the state seeks to shift 875,000 into the Medi-Cal program from the Healthy Families program in 2013. “One must first be able to access care to obtain quality care. Existing Medi-Cal payments are the worst in the nation. Medicare pays $73 for the most common level office visit – Medi-Cal a paltry $23. Or, how about $168 from Medi-Cal for a surgery such as a tonsillectomy? This in an environment where the cost to provide medical care – rent, salaries, equipment, etc. – has risen year after year above inflation, without any significant increase in reimbursements for over two decades”. Source.

Over the course of the next year, approximately 800,000 children will be moved from a (what was) functional Healthy Families Program, into this failing Medi-Cal program. All over a program that physicians don’t think will save the state any money. Where will these patients go when they cannot find a primary care doctor, or their clinic cannot find a specialist to see them under Medi-Cal? To the emergency room, where care is notably more costly than timely care in the doctor’s office.