Category: Health
Posted inEconomy & Business, From the Newsroom, Health, Media, Social Justice

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In the Public Press, elites don’t dictate coverage

If you missed it, the Winter 2011 edition of the Public Press (Issue 5) went on sale in November, and it came on the heels of a national conversation about how to fund and fortify community journalism. This is the editorial on page 2.

Issue 5 of the San Francisco Public Press, an ad-free nonprofit local newspaper, takes cues from noncommercial magazines, some of which have become influential of late. One model was Adbusters, the “culturejammer” magazine that inspired the global Occupy movement. Our approach at the Public Press has always been to look for stories that see the city and the Bay Area from the viewpoint of average people instead of just the elites, whose concerns are well represented. While we don’t practice advocacy journalism, we do strive to cover, in depth, stories and communities that commercially funded media don’t often pay attention to.

Posted inBay Area, Education, Health, Media, Social Justice

Across San Francisco region, expulsion rates and attitudes toward punishment vary widely

by T.J. Johnston

While there are many aspects of culture and politics that unite the nine counties of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of more than 7 million people, attitudes toward school discipline do not seem to be among them. What happens to students when they disrupt the classroom or commit crimes depends largely on where they live. That is because approaches to expulsion and suspension vary widely across school districts and across the region. While reforms such as restorative justice appear to coincide with decreases in expulsion rates across the region in the last year or two, school administrators at the county and local level have a wide range of views on the best ways to preserve order in schools after a student has misbehaved.

Posted inHealth, Healthy SF: Who Pays?, Technology

Some employers drop private health plans for San Francisco’s subsidized public option

by Barbara Grady

Unintended consequences of city’s effort at universal health care

A San Francisco requirement that businesses pay for their employees’ health needs has led to more workers having some form of health care. But after businesses initially stepped up to buy private health insurance for more of their workers, there has been a steady retreat. Since 2008, a growing percentage of employers have ditched private insurance for a cheaper way of meeting the law’s requirements: city-engineered reimbursement accounts, which cost companies half or less what they previously paid for traditional insurance.

Posted inHealth, Healthy SF: Who Pays?, Technology

Participants appreciate safety-net health access program, but note gaps

by Kyung Jin Lee

Customer service is a problem as patient load continues to grow

Most participants in Healthy San Francisco, the city’s 2007 initiative to expand care to more than 50,000 uninsured patients, appreciate the overall access to preventative care and treatment for chronic health conditions. A 2009 survey showed that more than nine in 10 are “very” or “somewhat” satisfied with the program. Patients cite the affordability of the program and the quality of care they receive from the health care practitioners. But program participants and medical care providers also note the inconsistency in the services they receive under Healthy San Francisco.

Posted inHealth, Healthy SF: Who Pays?, Social Services

Medical records supporting San Francisco’s universal care add millions to official cost

by Angela Hart

Clinics scramble for money to switch to electronic health records

The San Francisco Department of Public Health says it is ahead of the curve in rolling out databases that keep tabs on tens of thousands of patients across a citywide network of clinics and hospitals. The rollout is needed not just to make a local form of “universal health care” work, but also to meet a 2014 deadline under national health reform. And the city says it spent just $3.4 million on new patient-tracking technology. Not bad for an unprecedented charity care initiative whose total budget has grown to $177 million just this past year. But while clinics and hospitals across the city are now linked up to a common intake tool that eliminates overbilling and duplicated medical appointments, that is only the first step in making the Healthy San Francisco program successful, directors of local health centers and technology experts say. A separate and much more complex piece of technology — electronic health records — is proving difficult and expensive.

Posted inHealth, Healthy SF: Who Pays?

San Francisco’s universal health plan reaches tens of thousands, but rests on unstable funding

by Barbara Grady

Coordination and prevention improve care, but as businesses resist, some costs are borne by one-time grants and struggling clinics

Four years ago, San Francisco launched a grand experiment, becoming the first city in the nation to offer comprehensive health care to its growing ranks of uninsured. Stitching together two-dozen neighborhood health clinics and an array of hospitals, the city bet that two reforms — emphasis on primary care and a common electronic enrollment system — could improve outcomes and buffer the city against soaring health care costs. By many measures, San Francisco’s effort to provide universal health care has been a huge success. The initiative, Healthy San Francisco, has over time treated more than 100,000 city residents. But the city’s grand plan has not solved the central problem dogging health care across the country: figuring out who pays for it.

Posted inHealth, Homelessness, Social Justice

Empty S.F. hotels occupied in World Homeless Day protest

by T.J. Johnston

As the Occupy Wall Street movement gains momentum nationwide, a band of housing activists occupied 10 vacant buildings in San Francisco on Monday. Following a late afternoon rally at the Civic Center, at least 30 members of Homes Not Jails entered the Cathedral Hill Hotel at 1101 Van Ness Ave. by cutting the gate open. Then they started occupying some of the 600 vacant units.

 

Posted inGovernment & Politics, Health

Medical pot industry faces big tax bill

by Mina Kim

The Bay Area’s budding medical pot industry is facing a big tax bill. The IRS has ruled Oakland’s largest dispensary can not deduct business expenses. In a letter last week, the IRS told Harborside Health Center that it can not deduct standard expenses like rent, payroll and health insurance … because it traffics drugs. Harborside’s executive director Steve DeAngelo said the dispensary now owes the federal government $2.5 million in back taxes and penalties.

Posted inCity Hall, Environment, Health, Technology

Pharmaceutical industry yields to pressure from San Francisco to fund a drug take-back program

by Siri Markula

Starting as soon as August, San Franciscans will be able to dispose of their unused medicines for free at 16 independent pharmacies and five police stations throughout the city. The pharmaceutical industry is funding the pilot program with $110,000, after facing city plans that threatened to extend producer responsibility to pharmaceuticals. For decades the industry and government waste experts told consumers to flush medications down the toilet. But with increasing recognition of the effects of human drugs on wildlife, regulators at all levels are seeking to get medicines out of the waste stream.

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