Social Determinants of Health

California Budgets to Improve SDOH

California hopes proper allocation of their $162.3 billion budget will help tackle some of the ongoing challenges their healthcare system faces.

Megan Boss

Oct 1, 2019

Earlier this year, California elected Governor Gavin Newsom, signed the state budget with lofty focus on improving community health with SDOH program funding. The budget allots $162.3 billion of it’s $214.8 billion to Health and Human Services (HHS). California hopes the proper allocation of this $2.3 billion increase will help tackle some of the ongoing challenges their healthcare system faces.

In a 2018 study of healthcare accessibility by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, California’s healthcare system ranked 40th out of the 50 states. Due to California’s size and diversity, factors like distance and language barriers often make healthcare challenging to access, especially for the large population of undocumented individuals. California is adjusting to these realities by prioritizing the following programs:

Whole-Person Care: An additional $120 million in SDOH funding was added to the budget; providing supportive housing services, as well as mental health, behavioral health, and substance abuse resources to improve whole-person care.
Health Home Program: The Health Home Program was granted an extension, allowing access to the budget from the State Treasury for four additional years.
Medi-Cal coverage: Previously, only undocumented individuals ages 0-18 could receive Medi-Cal coverage. Medi-Cal will now be extended to ages 19-25.

States and communities handle these issues with different programs. Recently we partnered with Camden Coalition in Camden, New Jersey to help better engage with patients and those in need of whole person care. With the ACT.md’s CareHub™, we integrated organizations in Camden County onto our cloud based collaboration platform in order to bring patients and providers into one shared space.

To learn how we work with communities across the country to help health plans, provider networks, and social services organizations come together around highly effective interventions designed to product SDOH outcomes, access the Act.md CareHub™ Solution Overview now.