
Imposing that requirement would add several hundred thousand dollars a year in new costs, which could result in higher rates for patients and insurers or clinic closures, according to California’s nonpartisan legislative analyst. Moreover, federal regulations already require clinics to have a medical director who is a board-certified physician, though the director isn’t required to spend a set amount of time at the clinic.
ANOTHER WORD FOR CYNDICATE PROFESSIONAL
A physician or other health care professional at the clinic wouldn’t be involved in their care but would add to the cost of their care. Having a doctor present may sound sensible, but patients’ treatment is overseen by their personal physician. Proposition 29 takes a similar tack, requiring a physician, a nurse practitioner or a physician assistant.
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The second, which aimed to drive up operating costs by requiring an on-site physician whenever a clinic was open, got 36%. The first union-backed initiative, which targeted clinics’ profits, got barely 40% of the vote. Dialysis is big business, with about 600 licensed clinics employing thousands of people in California. The lifesaving treatment takes about four hours, and patients must undergo dialysis three times a week. If new rules are needed, the job should be handled by the Legislature and the state Department of Public Health Services in consultation with medical experts.Ībout 80,000 California residents require dialysis, a procedure that uses machines to remove a patient’s blood and filter waste and excess fluids before returning the blood to their bodies. Without advanced medical knowledge, even the most diligent voter would be hard-pressed to determine the best approach to delivering kidney dialysis. However, we believe an initiative is the wrong way to regulate a specialized medical procedure that literally is a matter of life and death for people suffering from serious kidney disease. We do not have a position on whether clinic employees should form a union. Voters soundly rejected the first two initiatives, and they would be wise to say no once again. This is, as we said in 2018 and again in 2020, an abuse of the initiative process. Having failed at its primary objective, the union is waging a costly ballot-box war against clinic owners.

The initiative is bankrolled by Service Employees International Union-United Health Care West, which has tried to organize workers in the clinics. 8 ballot, would impose medically unnecessary staffing requirements on California dialysis clinics. Proposition 29, an initiative on the Nov.

For the third time in four years, California voters are getting dragged into a fight between a national labor union and kidney dialysis clinics.
