UC Davis Health, as a public hospital, serves 0 medi-cal patients for primary care.
Who is HEAT?
What we’ve learned?
Location of UC Davis and how they uniquely serve the community:
Community believes that the hospital is THEIR hospital – they continue to go to UC Davis.
As of Jan. 1, 2015, UC Davis Health System refuses to see Medi-Cal Patients for primary care services.
Primary care services means:
A patient’s main source for regular medical care, ideally providing continuity and integration of health care services. All family physicians, and many pediatricians and internists, practice primary care. The aims of primary care are to provide the patient with a broad spectrum of preventive and curative care over a period of time and to coordinate all the care that the patient receives.
Who is affected?
Anyone received Medi-Cal benefits. The people who have Medi-Cal are the most vulnerable in our community
Why accessing primary care at UC Davis important?
Access to Healthcare is threatened in the US and we must rely more and more on our local health systems. Accessing primary care at UC Davis is important because UC Davis Health System (UCDHS) is a PUBLIC hospital and should be accessible to all members of the public – especially low-income individuals and families. Right now, the only way Medi-Cal patients can be seen by a doctor is through the Emergency Room or if they are referred to a UCDHS Specialist by their Primary Care Doctor (which would not be someone from UCDHS).
So what has been done so far?
A coalition representing 100’s of community members and 60+ community organizations have joined the effort to put pressure on UCDHS to accept medi-cal for primary care services. After several requests for information and calls for progress, UC Davis Health System continues to evade community requests to accept medi-cal for primary care.
Instead in our limited meetings with them they have offered up these reasons that don’t hold water:
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They DO serve the Medi-Cal population.
Fact: They do not provide any PRIMARY CARE services to the Medi-Cal population and are ONLY serving Medi-Cal patients through the Emergency Room or through Specialty Care.
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Reimbursement Rates are too low.
After one meeting with community advocates in Spring 2016, discussions have stalled and our concerns continue to go unanswered.
We have now decided that we must bring this concern to the attention of our community and legislature through a media campaign. The outcome we expect is that:
UCDHS explain their rationale for denying health care coverage to the most vulnerable members of the public as the ONLY public hospital in our region at a publicly held state hearing at the State Capitol.
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