Physicians groups object to the time limits created...the health plans are writing their own standards for timely appointments...who's got the answer 3 years later...BD
California's HMO czar, Daniel Zingale, declared, "The days are over when they could make patients wait and wait for healthcare."
Zingale was heralding a new law that required his department to ensure that HMO patients received timely appointments with doctors. The law was spawned by the case of a 74-year-old woman who died from an aneurysm in a Kaiser Permanente waiting room while pleading to see her physician.When HMOs and doctors groups objected to them, the department scrapped the rules in favor of ones that let health plans come up with their own methods of complying with the law. The plans have to submit their guidelines in October, and the department will review them. Physicians groups that contract with HMOs are not much happier. They complain that the department's rules will revive one of the characteristics consumers have historically disliked most about HMOs: their tendency to micromanage how, when and for how long doctors can see patients. HMOs have lost popularity. Last year they were the choice of 47% of workers, down from 54% in 2002, according to the California Health Care Foundation, an Oakland nonprofit organization
The rules also would have required HMOs to set up guidelines so patients calling their doctors would not be kept on hold longer than 15 minutes during regular office hours or longer than 30 minutes when leaving an after-hours message.
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