New Program to Aid Expectant Mothers

Expectant mothers on Medi-Cal can receive instruction in parenting and nutrition in a new state program of preventive care that could save taxpayers millions of dollars, county health educator Denise Gimbel said Monday.

So far, about 20 Orange County doctors and the obstetrics and gynecology clinic at the UC Irvine Medical Center are expected to participate in the new prenatal care program, Gimbel said.

As the county’s implementation coordinator for the Comprehensive Perinatal Services program, Gimbel has been recruiting doctors and hospitals.

Until now, the state health program has paid for doctor’s visits but not counseling for mothers-to-be, Gimbel said. The new program offers up to 50 hours of education and counseling for expectant mothers, with providers of the services to be reimbursed at $10 to $30 an hour.

“If you spend $1,000 on prevention for each woman, you could save a staggering amount for every child that would have been born at a low birth weight,” Gimbel said.

She noted that care for babies born prematurely in Orange County costs at least $5 million a year and that intensive care for such pre-term infants typically costs $2,300 a day.

New Medi-Cal rules authorizing preventive care for expectant mothers were signed Sept. 17, Gimbel noted, so physicians interested in the program could be approved within 30 days and could start providing care before the end of the year.

‘Step in Right Direction’

Dr. Dennis Buchanan, chairman of the Orange County Medical Assn.’s Perinatal Committee, called the new program “a step in the right direction,” because obstetricians who are already counseling Medi-Cal patients can finally be reimbursed.

Buchanan predicted, however, that red tape and the generally low reimbursement rates associated with Medi-Cal deliveries would continue to discourage more obstetricians from joining the program.

In the last year, the number of county obstetrician/gynecologists who were willing to care for Medi-Cal patients has dropped from 64 to 45, according to an August report on prenatal care in Orange County.

Medi-Cal has typically paid just $650 for prenatal care and delivery costs when those services “normally cost $1,300 to $2,000,” Buchanan said.

Gimbel said she could not estimate how many Orange County women would participate in the new program. But Penny Sperling, director of ambulatory care nursing at UCI Medical Center, suggested that 100 to 300 Medi-Cal patients at the UCI obstetrics clinic alone may participate.

The medical center will probably hire two or three new health educators to conduct classes, Sperling said.