Statewide — Department of Health Care Services’ (DHCS) Health Equity Roadmap that is designed to make Medi-Cal more equitable.
This was the fifth EMS briefing in a series of briefings regarding Medi-Cal.
According to EMS, 15 million people are enrolled in Medi-Cal and in 2022, the state experienced its lowest uninsured rate.
However, the panelists for this briefing asserted that, considering that low-income people and communities of color are faced with higher rates of sickness and death, there are still barriers to overcome as it pertains to equitable health care.
One such panelist is Pamela Riley, the chief health equity officer and assistant deputy director for Quality and Population Health Management for the DHCS.
During the briefing, Riley said that people of color experience difficulties securing care in a system that “wasn’t designed for them.”
The first phase of this roadmap was a statewide listening tour that DHCS leaders embarked on to hear from members of Medi-Cal who reported experiencing health care inequity.
The next phase of the roadmap will be the development and publishing of a report of the key findings from the aforementioned listening sessions.
According to Riley, the DHCS is in the process of identifying partners to work with on co-design sessions that will help shape solutions for health inequality.
Riley stressed the importance of the listening phase and community partnerships that will help the DHCS “center that experience and input in engagement and feedback of our members while bringing in other partners that can help us actually design and implement something that’s going to work and be effective.”
One of the organizations DHCS partnered with on this endeavor is Choice in Aging (CiA), an organization that, according to its mission statement, is dedicated to creating opportunities where “people can learn, grow and age independently with dignity in community.”
According to Debbie Toth, President and CEO of CiA, the DHCS program’s biggest challenge is funding.
“We have the knowledge, we have the wisdom, we have the policy, just give us the funding and we can make amazing things happen,” Toth said.
Riley echoed this sentiment and issued a call to action.
“We need all of you as part of the mix,” Riley said. “What we’ve done so far is by no means comprehensive, and it is a first step along a journey of learning how to better engage our members in really making care better for the populations we serve.”
