News

December 17, 2020By Physicians for a Healthy California CalHealthCares

Nearly 13 million Californians rely on Medi-Cal to meet their health care needs, including 38% of families with children, 27% of Affordable Care Act (ACA) expansion adults ages 19-64, and 16% of seniors and persons with disabilities. Given the current high unemployment rates, more working poor families are relying on Medi-Cal to keep themselves and their families healthy.

Delivering on the state’s promise to provide quality health care to its most vulnerable population requires California to ensure there are enough physicians in areas with high numbers of Medi-Cal beneficiaries. Physicians enter practice with hundreds of thousands of dollars in educational debt, with the average debt burden of a CalHealthCares applicant coming in at $360,707.

CalHealthCares incentivizes physicians to serve Medi-Cal beneficiaries by repaying educational debt up to $300,000 in exchange for a five-year service obligation. In its second cycle, over 1,000 providers applied, with a total educational debt of $323,671,592. Ultimately, 318 physicians and dentists were awarded $69.3 million to maintain and/or increase their Medi-Cal patient caseload:

• 802 physicians applied; 207 awarded
• 276 dentists applied; 42 awarded
• Largest Medi-Cal caseload increases for an awardee was 100% (specialist physician), 80% (dentist) and 70% (primary care physician)

The next application cycle runs January 18 through February 12, 2021. Learn more at CalHealthCares.org and email CalHealthCares@phcdocs.org to be added to our email list.