association network nation wide to support our members as well. there may be innetwork providers that may not be able to take new members, but rest assured, continuing members will continue to get their care from a in network provider they have today. we maintained consistency with the benefits and member cost share so no surprises starting 1-1. out of network providers. so, out of network providers is very key as well. even though we got the california providers, the nation wide network as well. this is a key facet of this plan along with the current plan, which is the ability to see any medicare

participating provider. once again, that is any medicare participating provider. as long as they agree to bill blue shield and participating with medicare program, their services they offer members will be covered. in the unlikely situation where maybe a provider is not familiar with the blue shield of california plan, typically all it takes is for us to reach out to them , be able to explain to them the plan and how we would reimbursement the hundred percent fee for service schedule without a contract so there is no strings attached and no contracting, this is the same payment they would receive from original medicare, this is actually typically all it takes for providers to continue services, because they want to continue to serve

their members, to serve their patients obviously. the next slide we got titled as pharmacy transition. it is very similar process and methodology for medical transition as well. specifically on pharmacy transition, our team will work together with the hss staff and with the current prescription drug vendor, optm rx and work together to insure a seemless transition. how we do that is requesting historical member level details that very specific that have prescription claim history, open refills, utilization management information, all the data we need to insure that we have got the background, we got the history, and we got

the ability to adjust and put in our system prior to 1-1. once again, these are typical measures we take proactive measures we take, work with hss staff and united to insure we got the information moving forward for a smooth 1-1 transition. specifically on the pharmacy side, we pay particular focus for open refill for home delivery and specialty pharmacy. we recognize there is a specific and critical need for these pharmaceuticals and there cannot be any disruption, so we pay particular attention to that to insure that they got that continuity of care with those medications. once again, we got that team supporting those efforts and lastly, we are going to be proactive about the transition. meaning, we are not waiting

until 1-1 to communicate any changes in either form iary or pharmacy or medical, we will reach out to them in december and make sure through member communication if there is any impacts to their care. lastly, blue shield also recognizes that along with the medical aspect and pharmaceutical aspect, there is also obviously mental and behavioral aspect of health, so we recognize that specific need and importance of it, so one of our goals is to make sure that we do not forget behavioral health aspect to transition folks. we want to help educate folks on the various tools and programs blue shield offers and provides, at the

same time, recognizing their current care that they are receiving and insuring that that is stable and continues as well without any interruptions. >> quick question. so, what is the mental health benefit? is it contracted through majellen? >> correct. majellen is our in-state provider and outside california, we got our bcbsa network of mental health providers outside california we can utilize as a second layer of mental health providers assistance and the third is as i was trying to emphasize as much as i could, medicare participating providers. it doesn't matter if you are on one side of the country versus the other side, as long as they participate in medicare and bill blue shield, we will maintain that service level. >> so, if anybody is using like united healthcare now for their mental health benefit, is that same

transition there available? obviously if they use medicare-- >> absolutely. >> not using the medicare, but using the united healthcare-- >> as long as they are medicare participating provider, even if we dont have a contract with them, let's say they have a contract only with united, if they are able to bill blue shield, they will be--that visit and those services will be covered. >> but they have to do the billing to blue shield? >> yes, they have to be willing to bill blue shield, but they will doing without a contract. one thing we explained our team will explain is they don't need a contract, we are not tying them to a contract. we are not trying to get them to for example, 98 percent of medicare or 102 percent of medicare, we are not going to play those games so to speak, we will pay you exactly as

original medicare will pay. it is simple as that, and typically folks understand that and that's without a contract and usually folks want to continue to see their patients. >> do we have issues with blue shield refusing to pay? >> sorry, one more time? >> do we have issues with blue shield refusing to pay? >> no. we should not have any issues with blue shield refusing to pay. this is a ppo network and we recognize the flexibility that this plan needs to have for folks, opposed to traditional hmo plan. that is the key difference. this is also a ppo plan with the flexibility and with that knowledge and operations to take out of network claims as opposed to the traditional hmo fee for service model. >> got it. thank you for that explanation.

>> are there providers that have dealt with blue shield before and had unpleasant experiences and don't want to deal with blue shield anymore? >> i'm sure there is. to be quite honest. i'm sure there is negative experience, but what we want to do is we want to move forward and what we want to do is also have our member-the best of the best give them a call and assure them, hey, this is my name, this is my number, if you have any issues with your claims moving forward, you got our information, you can call us back. we will work through it. that's our commitment to the members, to the providers and to the hss staff that we will take care of any issues. >> that was a issue i heard that people out of state that their doctors do not want to deal with blue shield at all. >> of course and that is understandable. you are way out there on the west coast. why do we want to deal with you?

what we would do like we said is to give them a call, explain to them how the plan works, give them additional information, and we are here to help the member. we are both here to help the member and that is the ultimate goal and at least gib us a shot. >> essentially you are the medicare intermediary for everyone? >> right. >> throughout the country. it isn't individual blue shield offices, it is one address for all bills for medicare go. it is like on the back of everybody's insurance card with uhc all is number to call and address to bill to and all the instructions are on a id card, the same instruction will be on id card from blue shield, it gives the phone number, the address for billing, and it is clearly medicare advantage ppo and i say most physicians would understand, most physicians certainly understand what that means and that it is

the medicare program that is essentially paying them and you are the sort of the intermediary and the administrator for the medicare program aspects of this plan if not mistaken, is that true? >> yes, we are. also to mention that, by law medicare advantage plans need to cover mininally what medicare offers and we have the option as hss has as i mentioned to include supplemental benefits, such as the transportation, the meals. we also have a pers system. it is system, fall monitoring system as well that is offered to retirees, so we go above and beyond medicare. >> if i may, a comment and a question. i think my comment because i think we might change people with the

slides. i really appreciate your team at blue shield listened to the hearings up to this period of time. it is very thoughtful comments people brought and i think importantly, hearing their concerns is really going to help your team understand what people's concerns are and i think whatever script you are putting together or faq, clearly the confusion between ppo and hmo is a big one and more we make sense what is managed and ppo healthcare is confusing. i say as a physician, it is confusing, confusing for everybody so the more you are able to make clear on that, i think is very very helpful for everybody and reiterating it. my question though is really you talked about focused on the pharmacy piece, but it gets back to member concerns and it really is around transition. we heard stories and e-mails about people who were undergoing cancer treatment and worried that will all

stop and i think the more we get out there and reassure. on a claim standpoint they will see so and so is getting chemo therapy every 3 weeks and so important to not miss a week in there and the more we can reach out and say, we got this, we really want to make sure that that happens and that they understand that and we understand that. i think really focusing on that-i use the term vulnerable. that feels very important. i guess that was my question at the end. >> i just want to also point out and great point about attention to details. that's actually that was very valuable tool for our team to take a

look at the videos and understand the concerns, and to that point, actually we have to-i have to give ourselves a pat on the back along with hss staff. we've developed a mailer that goes out here shortly addressing bucketing all these concerns, addressing these frequently asked questions, and being able to at least at a initial level answer some of these concerns and then if you got personal one on one situations that is where our best of the best team will bep available. we will log every call and if we need to get back to them later on with continuity of care concerns-i listened to a call this week and heard about potential care that folks are going to need outside the state and next year, and so that is where we let

them know, hey, as long as they providers take medicare and they bill us, we can certainly make the outreach and insure you got that care when you need it available. >> when are you starting the outreach and mailer to everybody? >> sorry? >> when are you starting the outreach and mailer to all the united healthcare people? the information? >> at this point i'll answer the question. rey guillen chief operating officer for hss, soon. we will go through the communication strategy with you right now and so, our communication manager jessica she developed a very comprehensive communication plan that is about to be launched and so, charles mentioned faq document prepared and ready to go out early next week to our members, and that will again, note a lot of

concerns we have heard from our members both in the public meetings and e-mails will be addressed in the document that is about to drop. we held off a bit in case there was feedback from today's meeting we want to make sure to address in the document, but it is prepared and ready to launch, but jessica has developed this communication campaign designed to fully educate all uhc members about this transition and we are calling it a aaa approach. we anticipate, assure and address. we have listened to the feedback and in addition sat down with blue shield to anticipate member concerns related to the transition and we want to get ahead of them. we are going to design all communications to insure

members that this plan provides the same benefits and access to the same providers as they have now. we are going to address all the concerns brought up immediately and so for the members that call either our customer service line or blue shield, again we will address their specific needs and also track the issues that are brought up, so we will keep a tally of the issues, we will track them and share between each other and going to address those concerns in the future communications so this is very much a communication plan that is open to adjustment and we are going to adjust as we go along. this is a multi-channel communication approach. we learned from our split family transition that we can change the way we do things and make them better, and so we do have a communication plan that includes postcards because we know a lot of members don't always open the envelope, so we'll send

opostcards in the mail with message on the front and back and detailed with a more detailed document in inside. we will send letters because they offer the opportunity to include more information then a postcard. we have webinars we have planned. we are going to reach out to the various organizations, such as protect our benefits retired police association and offer to cohost town halls with them to get in front of the members. one of the new tools and it is new to us, but not new to everyone, but e-mail. we are going to rely a lot more on e-mail then we have in the past, and we also have developed a special website with blue shield with all this information on it and we can change it on a dime. if we have any particular issues that are arising, we'll make sure we address them quickly on that micro

site. all the communications won't matter unless the systems are set up, so this is very much a group assignment. each and every division of hss along with our external partners are involved in implementing the systems and processes that will be required. rest assured, we haven't waited to start this. we started these changes and system changes quite a while ago, but they with well under way. again, it is a group approach and so, the team is here, so michael visconti from the contract team, his group is already working on finalizing all the plan documents and verifying all the details are consistent with the existing plan and the proposal that blue shield received. iftikhar and all the finance folks are setting up the different

premium rates required and setting up the billing systems. rin from our enterprise system and analytics team is designing all the data files that will be used to snd our members enrollment information to and from blue shield so the coverage is ready and in place for january 1, 2025, and to make this transition azeezy as possible. anyone in the uhc plan will automatically be migrated to the blue shield plan unless they elect to go to a different plan. they will not need to fill out enrollment forms, they won't need to log into our system, they are just rolled over directly to the blue shield plan. they are not going to need to get their medicare card and send that to us. they are just automatically transitioned over. and rin is also busy working on all our other systems, because it is a big load to make sure we get everything transitioned.

we have people soft system, our sales source system, we have a document retention and management system. all those systems need to be updated to hold the information for the new plan, but all that is well underway. this is a summary of our transition timeline our dashboard we are keeping track of. all the important tasks with the due dates to make sure nothing gets missed. we have weekly calls with blue shield. actually several different weekly calls occurring with blue shield. some on the transition plan, some on communication and this is a very small system. the transition plan, the joint plan we have with blue shield is over 6 times as long as what is presented on the screen, but we are insuring we meet each and every deadline we have and we are leveraging the support blue shield is providing to make sure that together we don't drop the ball on

anything. in addition we agreed to success metric that will be monitored to indicate how well the transition is proceeding. we will be tracking that first call resolution both on our side and on blue shield's side to insure once a member reaches out they don't have to call multiple times to get the issue resolved. we will track and share the reasons members are calling and address in future communications. our goal is to educate each and every impacted member so that they are aware of what's going on and are assured that they are not going to get lost in the shuffle. and so, in addition to our communications, we are going to track participation in our webinars and seminars, and in fact for our mailed communication, we are actually developed a qr code we will ask

members to scan from their phones to let us know they received the communication and there will be option to raise their hand in that qr code and say, i need someone to reach out to me and blue shield has agreed to make a number of out-bound calls to members to walk them through so they don't have to call and go through the phone system, they can just say, i want a call back and we'll make sure someone gives them a call back. in addition, we do still rely a lot on us mail and to meet our fiduciary responsibilities under our caf tearier plan, so our system works on u.s. mail and when that mail is returned, we are going to make sure we reach out to the members by phone and see if we can get a good address for them and make sure they get the communications so we will make work with blue shield to make the

out-bound calls to track down each and every member where a piece of mail is returned. so, in closing, again, i just want to reiterate, we believe we have this. we have some quite a bit of experience in making plan transitions. we are leveraging the support from partners both blue shield and aon to make sure we follow best practices. all our divisions are working together seemlessly and i got to thank abby yant for that. even within departments divisions operate in silos but abby has been working feverishly to break down the silos and each of our managers is used to working together to make sure we looic a look at the project we are doing and not the particular task so nothing is dropped, no balls are dropped as we go through this.

we do feel we can assure members that they will be transitioned smoothly and when issues do come up and we do know they will, we are going to address those immediately and use those as a learning experience to make sure that the rest of the transition goes even smoother. with that, any of the presenters are available to answer your questions. >> when you hit the wall where maybe you find a e-mail no longer works, or phone call or something or mail is being returned, do you have other processes that you use to try to contact those members? >> with every mailing we send out and again, we have a lot of members and so with every mailing that is sent out, we do make an effort to try to track and get a good address for those members, but we are hoping that by leveraging e-mail more then we have in the past that really help us to expand

the receipt of our information. because we know that in today's day and age not as many open their mail box as frequently as they used to so we need to leverage mail to make sure we meet our duties to insure receipt, but in addition, like i mentioned, blue shield agreed to work with us. we will split up the responsibility to reach out by phone for any piece of returned mail, so we do-this isn't something we have done in the past, but something we are efforting to do on a go-forward basis. >> are you contemplating using relationships with member organizations? we have retiree organizations and active employee organizations. can you utilize those to help sfwh ? >> yes, after the conclusion of this meeting is on the project plan to reach out to those retiree organizations to offer again, to cohost seminars

and webinar, in-person town halls, ready to go on the road and so, to whatever level that those organizations request, we will be willing and able to provide that support. >> it is helpful. thank you. >> can i ask a follow-up question relate today that? there will be people where we cant find them and maybe they are off doing a nice travel in a foreign country and not opening their mail. if i understand, the transition will happen and they will come back from travels and say i have a blue shield card because they don't need to do anything, do i have that right? >> yes. so, any existing uhc member is automatically going to be transferred over to the blue shield plan. they don't need to do anything so won't have break in cov erage and automatically transitioned over.

that is agreement blue shield made with us and the way we proceed so no one falls through the cracks. >> perfect. thank you. >> so, i appreciate the presentation and all the work everybody is doing on this. i was reminded there was a period of first third of my career i was a consultant and did competitive bids and sometimes got them and good news sometimes when i win a bid, i got the contract. bad news is, this was a competitive process and there will be a lot of scrutiny and i think this is less about message to hss as it is to blue shield. but, we heard loud and clear is that there are some real deficiencies with blue shield of california, and as i said privately and will say it

publicly, there was a lot of contversery about this that caused a lot of people to really consider spending the extra $67 million over a period of three years because of the problems that our member employees and are some retirees have had with blue shield of california. at the end of the day, i supported the winning bid. not because of my confidence in blue shield. it was because of my confidence in hss and my confidence in aon. i don't know whether i should have confidence in you in blue shield. not saying this individually, but i appreciate that you are saying the right things about excellent customer service, commitment to member satisfaction, but you need to know from the members that we serve, they

are not seeing a commitment to satisfaction. that was a hundred percent the problem that played out not just on this board, but at the board of supervisors and in the mayor's office and i want you to know what a big deal this is. the good news is, you got it. the bad news is, there isn't going to be a lot of sympathy if you don't get this right. my invitation to you and i think i speak for my colleagues on the board of supervisors and probably many people here, i am going to ask members who reached out who were opposing this to stay in touch with us to me as an elected official and member of this board. if this isn't going well, but the onus is really on you now. prove your critics wrong or you will have a lot more critics. i just hope that comes through

loud and clear and i get there may be the best of the best, but maybe you need to send a message to the people who are not the best and part of your organization too, there is reputational things spilling over. at the end of the day, i supported this as bear majority did, but i just want to make sure blue shield is getting the message that it was the health service system, my confidence in them and confidence in aon that won by vote and got blue shield to make sure we don't regret it. >> thank you. >> i'll say yes, absolutely. now it is our job to earn the trust of the members. we returned the trust of hss with our partners, with our past relationship on the active side. we earned that trust initially, now it is time for us to step up and

win over the folks and earn that trust moving forward. >> you need to reearn, because there were a lot of us, we took the other way out. the retiree group said no, we are not going down this road again, so you need to work hard to regain the trust of our members. >> absolutely. >> i can't emphasize that enough. >> absolutely. >> thank you. very serious issue. >> we do want to extend open invitation for you. a required invitation for blue shield for tiffany and charles and whoever you want to bring. we are not quite ready for public comment yet. we will let you know. to regularly each month update us, perhaps we will have standing item on our agenda to do so, because we do want to understand--i also supported the move to blue shield, but it is

very similar to what supervisor dorsey has described as well. also, i must say that your earlier hesitation answering the question, i know you do not have a crystal because by using the word should be covered, that had somewhat chilling effect on everybody. you don't have to apologize, just letting you know that language, action matters and so hopefully your should turns into a will and but we just want to be very candidate with you. now that we have chosen you we want to invest in your success and also need for your to demonstrate your partnership and commitment to us. thank you. >> i will share we are planning to be at next month's board meeting as well and so we anticipate ongoing communications updates dashboard metric to be able to share and to be able to identify and pivot where needed to

adjust the questions and to address any concerns prior to 1-1. >> we will be hearing from members, but we also ask our staff. we dont want problems with our staff. we want their work to go as it should, smoothly. they should not be taking extra time with this, they should be doing this as a matter of their course as should your people, so we are monitoring all the way around, and i hate to put it this way, but i will say it. we've dumped you before, we can dump you again. [laughter] and you can quote me on that, because i will work for it if you dont come through. i have been on this board a long time and committed to the members. the members are first and foremost and they must get the services. we contract with you for their services, their piece of mind and best healthcare they can get and that is the minimum we expect. so, we are very serious as we

sit here. bear that in mind. we have access to a couple offices down the hall. some worked here before we know how to crawl there and we know the back doors. so we can get in when we need to, but this is very very serious and our members work for the city, they work for the people who live in san francisco. a lot of us are born and raised here and but we are strongly committed to san francisco, to our city and county and we expect that we get the best we can get for our health benefits and the other benefits that we bargained for and we work for and we expect no less then the best we can get from everybody. we give our best and we expect our best. so, we look forward to those ongoing relationships, and support from you. thank you. >> while you heard very strong comments from this board, we do also want to tell you now that we are partners we

are in it together so we want to work with you. we do want this effort of the transition to be successful, so please hear our words correctly, that we are serious, we have chosen you, but now we also are expecting a lot from you. thank you. any other comments or questions? alright. let's open up for public comment. >> sorry. >> i just want to acknowledge that our partnership, we have approached this exactly that way, it is strong partnership. regular executive meets with both organizations and regular implementation meetings. we have assurances from the top of blue shield organization this is a priority for them and they'll make it right. we will hold them accountable for that but i want you to know that relationship is in place, ongoing, it is transparent, and we-our team

has risen to the challenge. i thank you for the comment, but it is truly remarkable to see how well we are doing and i hold my team accountable for making sure i know where they are taking care of everything. i use the rocket ship analogy that i don't want a rocket ship blowing up because somebody didn't want to tell us they were using the wrong glue. that is how we are approaching this, full commitment of everybody on the team and it is this train is moving really fast, and but everybody is on-board and the partnership with blue shield continues to be strengthened. i cant speak to historical problems with blue shield of 10, 20years ago. i can speak in the partnership with acive employees it works very well, and so we are building on that relationship and not relationship of a plan

that was taken care of by none of the people in this room. so, i just want to make that very clear we are starting from a positive place where members are holding us accountable. that is great. we already got members helping test our system jz will continue to do that, and we will be back next month with a update. >> thank you now we are ready for public comment. [laughter] [providing instructions for public comment which is displayed on the screen] we'll begin with in person public comment. >> thank you. my name is alyssa matrass, good

afternoon, good evening commission. i appreciate the remarks that supervisor dorsey made. those are some of my concerns. i am a retired teacher of 50 years with san francisco unified school district. i retired three years ago, and i think tiffany talked about how she had been through this before and i'm going to say this is not my first rodeo with healthcare transitions. three years ago i transitioned from blue shield to united healthcare. i'm very happy with united healthcare. what wasn't working, speaking as a member and it is really important that you listen to the members that this system will be serving--it was

anything but smooth. teachers retire on june 30. we had to keep blue shield until june 30 and there was nothing coming from united healthcare as of july 1. my husband is disabled and just had neuro surgery. i kept calling hss, i kept calling blue shield to find out what kind of documentation he could present to his neuro surgeon and nothing was resolved, so he had to go to his appointment so he is standing at the desk of his neuro surgeon at ucsf and they cannot serve him because he has no card. that was not a transition that consairj was available for. finally they called me beca i'm the

insured member. nobody could talk to my husband or i couldn't talk for my husband because of hipaa. hipaa didn't allow me to discuss that he's covered. it doesn't work. you have to really know that the devil is in the details. there is part of this meeting where i thought i was back at-trying to decide if i should go for the extended warranty where they bring you in the office and you don't know what you are getting. that is how it feels. >> 30 seconds. >> i'm done. i just feel that you need to really pay attention and i heard a lot of comments that you are paying attention. you can promise the world, but unless it actually serves the members, you have not accomplished anything, you saved money, but you put us all

in peril. thank you for listening and are thank you for having remote access. very few people in this building commissions do, but you do, so thank you so much. >> thank you for your comments. >> appreciate your testimony. thank you. >> hello. i am dr. toby diner, a retired physician employed by the public health department, and i like to talk about the process by which you came to the decision to switch from united healthcare to blue shield. in june, dr. steven follasbee, who was a long time commission member was the only healthcare expertatize on

the commission after hearing and reading all the material provided voted no. at that meeting, he voted no for the switch, because it was clear that no one could explain how blue shield was going to save the city $22 million a year without diminishing the service to our members. a week later, dr. follasbee was removed from the commission and a new physician was placed on the board. she was sworn in in the morning and in the afternoon she voted yes. that reversed the board decision. i think it needs to be on the public record that this was an appalling way for the commission to make a

change in such an important process as who retiree members have providing their healthcare. $22 million in savings is a great deal. i am still unclear how it is that blue shield will provide "the same services, have the same providers" and yet save the city $22 million. this makes no fiscal sense. it makes no sense to me. i was a provider privately for many years, i worked for the public health department. someone will lose and it will be the members. there will be providers who will refuse to see our members because blue shield

will underpay them. >> 30 second said. >> please be very clear how you evaluate their performance. thank you. >> thank you for your comments. anyone else is welcome to approach the podium. >> hello commissioners. my name is norm galeman, and i'm a retired city gardener, and i just wanted to echo the previous speaker of the confusion that happen about the change. i came to the june meeting, seem s like it was okay for united healthcare, and then i got an e-mail saying it wasn't and come down to this meeting, so quite concerned. thank you for your time. >> thank you for your comments. anyone else is welcome to approach the podium.

>> fred sanchez from protect our benefits. what i hear today is encouraging. i am only half crazy, not totally crazy. [laughter] yes, like somebody in oregon said that during the pandemic the reason their only hospital got rid of blue shield is because their capitation rates were higher, so they said, hey, they just got rid of them, but that's in the past. hopefully we'll inform you even now where we are finding difficult so you say you'll work with people, make phone calls to educate that hospital in oregon and say how things will be the same. that is encouraging. but, i'm curious, this is three year contract and i heard different things where it was $67 million

savings and at another meeting said $43 million savings, so which one is it? i'm not sure which one it is. but, it is a three year contract. if hopefully this doesn't happen, but if after a year we find bad things are not happening, can we get out of the contract? is there something in that contract language that iis as if they do not meet these-the cost things, different copays, whatever things there are, you can look in it, but is there a caveat somewhere in that contract that allows this three year agreement to be terminated after a year if there is just cause? thank you. >> no one approached the podium. we'll move to our moderator who

will let us know if there are callers in the remote public comment at this time. >> board secretary there are 9 callers on the line, zero entered the queue at this time. >> thank you moderator. hearing no further calls, public comment is now closed. >> thank you. do we have final comments or questions from our board? no. so, thank you tiffany and charles. we are generally very nice bunch, but we are also very serious about making sure the members concerns are addressed and so, welcome to the family, and we really do look forward working with you and we will hear from you. we look forward hearing from you next month. thank you. and so, please call the next item. >> item 13, reports and updates from contracted health plan representatives. this is a discussion and any health plan reps can approach the

podium. >> good afternoon. denise rodriguez with kaiser permanente and coming up to let you all know that debbie who has been your senior executive account manager for the last 6 years has made some personal choices and one is to move to southern california, so she is moving into the same position working on county of la, so he has a thing for big counties i think. so, laura zamen is her replacement and will be new senior executive account manager. i will hand it off to debbie. she wants to say a few things and laura will come up and do a quick introduction of herself and i know we are out of time here. thank you. >> thank you very much. i just wanted-debbie, kaiser permanente. i want to say thank you so much for allowing me to serve you. it has been a honor and

privilege and just wanted to wish you all well and continue doing the great work that you are doing, thank you. i will hand it over to laura. >> thank you debbie, all the best to you. >> thank you for coming. >> hi, good afternoon. i won't keep you too long because we are over time. laura zamen and work with kaiser. >> can you speak into the mic. >> i am replacing debbie and worked together at united healthcare a long time ago. look forward work wg you all. i have history in insurance for over 20 years and the public sector, so happy to answer any questions, but look forward working with you all. >> welcome laura. thank you. alright. no other updates. we'll take public comment. [providing instructions for public comment which is displaying on

the screen] we'll begin with in person public comment. no one approached to the podium and move to remote public comment and the moderator will notify of callers in the queue. >> board secretary, there are 7 callers on the phone line, zero callers entered the public comment queue at this time. >> thank you moderator. hearing no further callers, public comment is closed. >> thank you. just one quick note. we actually can go until 4:30 but we need to get out by 4:30 so we don't intrude on the next commission. i appreciate being mindful of time. with all that, i call this health service board meeting to

adjournment. thank you. >> adjournment, 404 p.m. [meeting adjourned] you're watching san francisco rising with chris

manors. today's special guest is jeff tumlin. >> hi, i'm chris manors and you're watching san francisco rising. the show on starting, rebuilding, and reimagining our city. our guest is jeff tumlin and he's with us to talk about our transportation recovery plan and some exciting projects across the city. mr. tumlin welcome to the show. >> thank you for having me. >> i know the pandemic was particularly challenging for the m.t.a. having to balance between keeping central transportation routes open, but things have improved. how are we doing with our transportation recovery plan? >> so we just got good news this week. we're getting an extra $115 million from the american rescue plan and this is basically the exact amount of money we finally needed in order to close the gap between

now and november of 2024 when we'll have to find some additional revenue sources in order to sustain the agency. in the meantime, i finally have the confidence to be able to rapidly hire, to restore services and to make sure muni is there for san francisco's larger economic recovery because downtown san francisco doesn't work without muni. >> quite right. i guess the other impact of the pandemic was that some projects like the valencia bike improvements had to be put on hold. are we starting to gear up on those again? >> yes, so it's an interesting case study. of right before covid hit, we were about ready to invest in quick build bike lanes. arguably the most important bike order in san francisco. that got stopped with lockdown and then as you'll recall, during covid, we invented all

kinds of other new programs like shared spaces in order to support our small businesses as well as sunday street light events for neighborhood commercial streets where streets were closed off to cars and turned over to commercial activity. those successes now that they've been made permanent actually interrupt the draft design we had put together. so we've gone back to the drawing board and we are looking forward to having some additional community conversations about other design ideas for valencia. we're committed to completing a quick build project on this calendar year. >> that's such good news. valencia is a really great street for biking. so there are two huge and exciting projects that are about to be or have just been completed. let's talk about the bus rapid transit project on van ness avenue. how extensive have the improvements been? >> what's called the van ness transit rapid project is in

fact more about complete reconstruction of the street and most importantly, the 100-year-old utilities underneath the street. so all of the water, sewer, telecommunications, gas lines under the street were basically rebuilt from market street all the way to lumbard. the part on the surface which provides dedicated bus lanes for golden gate transit and muni, that was relatively straight forward and we're so excited we're going to start revenue service for muni on april 1st. >> that's fantastic. i understand there were some sidewalk improvements too. >> there were sidewalk improvements. we planted 374 trees. there is new storm water treatment including infiltration in the sidewalk, there's a bunch of art. there's all kinds of things. we put in new street lights for the entire corridor.

>> finally, the other big news is about the central subway. can you briefly describe the project and give us an update. >> yes, so the central t-line project, another stop at union square that connects directly into powell station and a final stop in the heart of chinatown at stockton and washington. that project has also run into challenges. it's 120' under muni, under bart, 120' down and out under chinatown in some unexpectedly challenging soils. but that project is nearly complete. it's at about 98% completion right now which means we're testing trains, we're testing the elevators and escalators

and the final electronics and we're still on track to open that in october presuming all of the testing continues to go well. so fingers crossed on in a one. we're really looking forward to allowing people to have a subway ride from the heart of chinatown all the way to the convention center to the caltrans station and all the way down to bayview and visitation valley. >> it's great to see all these projects coming to completion. we're all grateful for your team's hard work and i really appreciate you coming on the show, mr. tumlin. thank you for the time you've given us today. >> my pleasure. thanks for having me. >> and that's it for this episode. for sfgov tv i'm chris manors. thanks for watching.

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the art district because we have the contemp refer museum of sf. yerba buena for the arts all of the operators and businesses here we get together and xhoukt and support each other this is a very cool neighborhood to be a part of. [music] paint on canvas is primary low when we do. this is guilty pleasures an all female artist show. it is going to be great. fun we have interactive elements. >> we love having this gem. you know people come in and discover it and get to feel at home. this is like home san francisco >> never be afraid it anybodying on our door.

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