Cindy Ehnes
Director

Department of Managed Health Care
For more information about the DMHC and its programs, go to www.hmohelp.ca.gov.

Responsibilities and accomplishments include:

Responding to consumer complaints about HMOs:

• Answered more than 10,000 calls monthly during 2005.
• Fined health plans a total of nearly $1.5 million for violations in state law in 2005, compared to $723,000 in 2004.

Protecting consumers from fraudulent discount health card companies:

• Issued orders against six companies in 2004-05 to cease doing business in California.
• Assisted consumers with recovering fees paid to companies that sell discount health cards but don't offer verifiable discounts on health care services.
• Investigated more than 300 consumer complaints and identified about 100 victims in 2005.

Making more health insurance choices available:

• Approved 14 new and innovative health insurance products in 2005.
• Reduced the time required for approval of key health plan licensing documents from an average of 147 days in 2003 to 27 days in 2005, allowing plans to respond to the marketplace demand for new HMO benefit products.
• Offered new services through the HMO Help Center to ensure doctors and hospitals are paid promptly by health plans so that they can continue to operate - producing nearly $300,000 in additional payments in 2005.