Sandra Perez
Director

Office of the Patient Advocate
For more information about OPA and its programs, go to www.opa.ca.gov.

Responsibilities and accomplishments include:

Reaching out to HMO consumers to give them the tools they need:

• Provided more than 70,000 consumers with one-on-one education about their HMOs and distributed HMO Consumer Guides to more than 637,000 HMO consumers.
• Established a network of HMO Enrollee Regional Outreach Information Centers comprised of 12 community-based and 4 statewide organizations that participate in more than 700 events annually.
• Brought together more than 220 consumer advocates, state and federal government agencies, and researchers for a biennial Symposium on HMO Consumer Advocacy.

Improving health care quality for HMO enrollees:

• Published an annual HMO Report Card evaluating the clinical quality and patient satisfaction for the 10 largest HMOs and more than 200 medical groups.
• Created the first assessment in the country of language access services in HMOs.
• Created a distribution network of more than 1,000 local outlets for the distribution of the Report Card, which includes 350 Walgreens stores, 216 independent pharmacies, 26 Leaders pharmacy stores and 631 public library branches.
• Distributed more than 150,000 printed copies of the Report Card annually.
• Hosted a statewide Symposium on the "Public Disclosure of Health Care Quality Data" attracting more than 200 medical professionals and academic researchers.

Working with the state Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) to deliver seamless advocacy efforts:

• Worked with DMHC to improve the literacy level of consumer information.
• Assisted DMHC in establishing regulatory standards for language access.
• Developed a Cooperative Agreement with DMHC to collaborate on quality monitoring, compliance, consumer education and data collection from HMOs.