FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 Fresno Unified School District, the Fresno Teachers Association, and the Joint Health Management Board have announced plans to address the ongoing disruption in health insurance coverage for its retirees. <\/p>\n
The disruption stems from stalled negotiations between Aetna and Community Medical Centers, which have left many retirees without access to essential healthcare services.<\/p>\n
During a news conference, Superintendent Misty Her revealed that JHMB will meet on Thursday, Jan. 15, to vote on alternative options to ensure retirees receive necessary care.<\/p>\n
Superintendent Her expressed frustration over the situation.<\/p>\n
Retirees told her about doctors discontinuing care, delays or denials in medication access, and being turned away from services. <\/p>\n
“These experiences are deeply troubling and unacceptable,” she said.<\/p>\n
FTA President Manuel Bonilla urged Community Medical Centers to restore healthcare access for retirees immediately, accusing the centers of using retirees as “bargaining chips” in their contract dispute with Aetna. <\/p>\n
Bonilla clarified that neither FUSD nor JHMB is involved in the negotiations or at fault for the disruption.<\/p>\n
Veva Islas, president of the FUSD Board of Education, called on Community Medical Centers to take immediate action.<\/p>\n
She urged them to stop turning away retirees, allow them to keep medical appointments, and continue seeing their providers, with reimbursement at the Medicare allowable amount. <\/p>\n
Comment with Bubbles<\/p>\n
BE THE FIRST TO COMMENT<\/p>\n
Islas also requested a contract extension to facilitate continued negotiations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 Fresno Unified School District, the Fresno Teachers Association, and the Joint Health Management Board…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":{"0":"post-131013","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fresno","8":"tag-fresno","9":"tag-fresno-headlines","10":"tag-fresno-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}