California created enhanced care management to help Medi-Cal patients with complex health and social needs before they reach the emergency room. Community Bridges spent three years building a community-based program that now serves more than 200 people. But, Community Bridges CEO Ray Cancino writes, a shift toward encounter-based reimbursement is making the relationship-building, outreach and coordination that prevention requires increasingly difficult to sustain and Community Bridges will now be forced to close the program. Cancino questions whether the new payment model will actually save money — or simply move the costs downstream.
Raymon Cancino
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Elderday needs 60 more people: The need exists, but the healthcare system isn’t connecting them
Raymon Cancino, CEO of Community Bridges, points out a big failure in our community – our inability to connect needy people to the services they need. Here, he warns that Elderday, which serves about 140 vulnerable older adults in Watsonville, faces an unsustainable financial future unless enrollment grows to roughly 200 participants.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Community Bridges: Our commitment to our employees, mission and community
OPINION: Community Bridges CEO Ray Cancino reaffirms the agency’s commitment to supporting both its employees and the communities it serves and laments that workers who published a Lookout op-ed earlier this week feel unheard.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Pajaro Valley Health Care District needs solid, continued leadership of Pimentel and Nájera
The fledgling Pajaro Valley Health Care District — cobbled together to protect the bankrupt Watsonville Community Hospital from closing — still has a momentous task ahead to reach stability for our community and its staff. A group of 10 well-respected public service professionals argue for the election of two current health care board representatives. Marcus Pimentel and Jasmine Nájera, both appointed by the board of supervisors to the jobs last year, are pivotal to the district’s future success, they write.
