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“It’s staggering,” said Carmela Castellano-Garcia, CEO of the California Primary Care Association. In her state alone, she said, a 44 percent dropoff in patient visits to community clinics was the primary driver in a reduction of 6,000 safety-net health workers by the...

Statewide, federally qualified health centers are hemorrhaging nearly $90 million per week because patient visits — and reimbursements from Medi-Cal insurance — have dropped by half as people hunker down at home, according to Carmela Castellano-Garcia, president and...

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have expanded access to telemedicine appointments for their beneficiaries. Thanks to a new waiver, more elderly and low-income people can now receive care from practitioners...

Community Health Centers (CHCs) serve more than 28 million people annually. By mission and mandate, CHCs are typically located in high-need, low-resourced areas, and serve all members of the community, regardless of ability to pay. The recent public charge rule is...

Statewide, patient visits are down by roughly half across California’s network of community clinics and health centers, leading to tens of millions in lost revenue each week. For many local health clinics that primarily serve low-income residents and rely on Medicaid...

Community Health Centers are serving on the front lines of the nation’s battle against coronavirus. CHCs are nonprofit health care clinics that provide health care to 29 million patients nationwide, 25% of which are uninsured and 70% of which live in poverty....

La Clínica is part of a sprawling network of community health centers, mostly tucked in low-income neighborhoods, that have suffered huge losses of revenue in recent weeks as the pandemic prompted them to stop most patient visits to limit the disease’s spread. Read...

The painful reckoning forced California lawmakers to address critical gaps in insurance, health services, emergency planning and communications. State and county leaders are now relying on that wildfire groundwork during the Covid-19 crisis. Read the full article...

After 22 years at the helm of one of California’s larger health care advocacy organizations, Carmela Castellano-Garcia is looking to her own organization as a way to empower women... Read the full article at the Sac Business Journal website