Jacey Cooper has served as California’s Medicaid director since January 2020. She previously worked as the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) senior advisor of health care programs and assistant deputy director of health care delivery systems, and has also held leadership positions at Meridian Healthcare Partners, Kern Medical Center, and COPE Health Solutions. Taking the helm of the department just before the onset of the pandemic, Cooper has been at the forefront of California’s fight against COVID-19.
North Carolina transitioned control of Medicaid to five private companies on July 1 after years of planning, but the switch is resulting in "a lot of challenges."
Regardless of where you stand on Medicaid expansion, all of us can agree that Missouri’s Medicaid system is broken. Plagued by high costs and poor outcomes, our citizens deserve and have demanded better. But entrenched special interests and wealthy non-profits are now running off to court to try and prevent even the most common sense of Medicaid reforms from being enacted.
When Kayla Kjelshus gave birth to her first child, the infant spent seven days in the neonatal intensive care unit, known as the NICU. This stressful medical experience was followed by an equally stressful financial one. Because of an obscure health insurance policy called the "birthday rule," Kjelshus and her husband, Mikkel, were hit with an unexpected charge of more than $200,000 for the NICU stay.
Thousands of Californians are learning that they will have to foot a bigger portion of their medical bills if they want to continue seeing their doctor since Dignity Health severed its contract with Anthem Blue Cross of California on July 15.
Prairie Business asked questions of several business professionals in the region about their corporate communities, how they go about attracting new talent and what they do to retain employees, among other questions. Here's how Kelsey Roth, vice president of Human Resources at Blue Cross Blue Shield North Dakota, responded to the magazine's questions: