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Sepsis

Many doctors view sepsis as a three-stage syndrome, starting with sepsis and progressing through severe sepsis to septic shock. The goal is to treat sepsis during its mild stage, before it becomes more dangerous.

To be diagnosed with sepsis, you must exhibit at least two of the following symptoms:

    Body temperature above 101 F (38.3 C) or below 96.8 F (36 C)
    Heart rate higher than 90 beats a minute
    Respiratory rate higher than 20 breaths a minute
    Probable or confirmed infection

Severe sepsis

Your diagnosis will be upgraded to severe sepsis if you also exhibit at least one of the following signs and symptoms, which indicate an organ may be failing:

    Significantly decreased urine output
    Abrupt change in mental status
    Decrease in platelet count
    Difficulty breathing
    Abnormal heart pumping function
    Abdominal pain

Septic shock

To be diagnosed with septic shock, you must have the signs and symptoms of severe sepsis — plus extremely low blood pressure that doesn't adequately respond to simple fluid replacement.


In theory. 
Under the Affordable Care Act, more low-income Californians than ever before are enrolling in Medi-Cal, the state’s public insurance program. Medi-Cal provides dental benefits to children and recently restored them to adults after canceling them almost five years ago. Since January, about 100,000 people in Orange County have enrolled in Medi-Cal under the ACA, which means they can begin making appointments with dentists who participate in the program. In addition, 88,500 children in the county who were previously covered by a public insurance program called Healthy Families were transferred to Medi-Cal under state edict. These patients will now obtain dental care from Medi-Cal’s dental program, also known as Denti-Cal. But while health advocates applaud the changes, noting a significant drop in the ranks of the uninsured, there is great uncertainty about whether these new patients will have dentists to see. “Right now a lot of dentists are not Denti-Cal providers, which is sad,” said Dulce Medina, the director of prevention and community programs at Healthy Smiles for Kids of Orange County. “We can’t blame them because their reimbursements are extremely low.”