HMOs not meeting national standards in basic areas, report says
Lisa Girion
Los Angeles Times
Many Californians enrolled in healthcare plans are receiving inadequate preventive care, a government report said Thursday.
The eight largest plans in the state fail to ensure that their 12 million members are sufficiently tested and treated to prevent and detect major diseases and reduce unnecessary expenses, according to the California Office of the Patient Advocate's report, called the Health Care Quality Report Card.
The report compared how often the plans, along with about 200 physician groups, met 31 clinical quality standards, such as immunizing infants and screening adults for cancer, in 2006.
It found that almost one-third of middle-aged women hadn't had a mammogram to screen for breast cancer in the last two years, for example, and that almost half of plan members older than 50 hadn't been tested for colorectal cancer.
October 19, 2007 at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Blog Reactions
Save to del.icio.us | Share on Facebook
