Paramedic Jacob Modglin parks on a palm-lined street in Oxnard and jumps out of his ambulance. He is prepared for any kind of emergency.
But his patient is standing in the driveway of a one-story house, holding a thermos, and smiling. It's time for his 8 p.m. appointment.
Modglin is part of a new cadre of "community paramedics" working in a dozen pilot programs across California. Their jobs are to treat patients before they get sick enough to need emergency care.
The paramedics are still first responders, just deployed to prevent a crisis rather than react to one.
Many insurance companies and healthcare providers are seeking to curb spending by focusing on the small number of patients who drive the majority of costs. These so-called super-utilizers often have chronic conditions or other social problems that keep sending them to hospital emergency rooms and racking up big bills.
[For more of this story, written by Soumya Karlamangla, go to http://www.latimes.com/local/c...-20150825-story.html]
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