Calif. considers healthcare licensing for illegal immigrants

Illegal immigrants would be able to obtain a license to practice medicine from the state of California under a bill passed in the state Senate in early May.

The bill, introduced by Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Huntington Park/Long Beach), would allow state boards to accept a federal taxpayer identification number in place of a Social Security number as part of a professional license application. Among other occupations, the relaxed rules would apply to healthcare professionals, including psychologists and pharmacists. The state Assembly is likely to take up the measure in the coming weeks.

“Over the last decade, our state has understood the importance of a continued investment in immigrant children,” Lara said in analysis presented to the state's Senate Rules Committee. “The natural step is to ensure that as these young people complete their education, a professional license is accessible to them in their respective fields.”

But opening up professional licensing to this segment has created controversy and is being targeted by conservative activists. “It's insane,” William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee, said in a news release. “By granting licenses to illegal immigrants, you both aid and abet illegal immigration, which is a violation of federal law.”

Even as acute-care volumes fell short of budgeted expectations, Providence Health & Services reported stronger revenue for the first quarter of 2014 and a net surplus that beat 2013's full-year results.

The not-for-profit Catholic system reported $50.9 million in net surplus for the quarter ended March 31, up 86.5% from the $27.3 million earned in the year-ago period. The results outpaced the $37.7 million in total net surplus that Providence reported at the close of fiscal 2013, as flat inpatient volume and an adverse payer mix stripped away gains for the year.

Quarterly revenue for the Renton, Wash.-based system rose 5.5% to $2.9 billion from $2.7 billion in the first quarter of 2013. The increase came despite a 2.5% drop in inpatient admissions from the year-ago period. Admissions also were about 5% behind the budgeted figure for the period. Meanwhile, primary care and continuum services—long-term care, hospice, housing, assisted living and home health—saw some improvements in their number of visits over the prior year.

Three of 10 hospitalizations in California in 2011 for people age 35 and older were for patients with diabetes, according to a new study.

“While diabetes is steadily increasing among California's general population, research suggests that patients with diabetes are disproportionately represented among adults who are hospitalized, contributing to increasing healthcare costs,” according to the study's authors from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the California Center for Public Health Advocacy.

In the 2011-2012 period, more than 2.3 million adults in California were diagnosed with diabetes, according to the California Health Interview Survey, up 35% from a decade ago.

Using hospital patient discharge records, study authors found that only 1.7% of hospitalizations are attributed to diabetes as the primary diagnosis. But because the disease may exacerbate other conditions, or cause serious complications that include blindness, kidney disease, cardiovascular disease and limb disease, it is more expensive to treat these patients, they said. Regardless of the reason for hospitalization, the authors said every hospital admission costs about $2,200 more for a diabetic patient than it does for people without the disease.

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