What They’re Watching: David Panush, California Health Policy Strategies

David Panush, President of California Health Policy Strategies, joins us in this edition of What They’re Watching to talk about inmate re-entry eligibility.

“The Affordable Care Act has really been a game changer in terms of how we deal with public safety. So, the first part is building that infrastructure between the corrections world and the health world. Over the last five years, that has really started to grow and become much stronger. We’re seeing in the whole person care pilots, in a couple of counties, very explicit relationships that create that warm hand off so that when someone comes out of jail or prison they are able to immediately get into the programs that they are eligible for.

We are seeing here in Sacramento, for example, WellSpace has a reentry pilot. It’s a great program. They’re connecting people from the jail into the clinic so they can get health, mental health, and drug treatment all together and all in one place seamlessly, and it seems to be working.”