California health officials failed to ensure that more than 9 million residents enrolled in Medi-Cal managed care plans had access to doctors when they needed them, the state auditor said in a stinging report Tuesday. Health officials might have learned about those problems from calls to an ombudsman’s office – but thousands went unanswered every month. Among the report’s findings: Incorrect or missing data on provider networks meant that state health officials had no idea if the plans had sufficient doctors and specialists, or if patients got the care they needed. An average of 12,500 calls to the program’s ombudsman went unanswered each month for nearly a year,...
↧