Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital (MLKCH) was designed to serve 40,000 patients in its emergency department each year, but it cares for more than 100,000. The hospital loses millions of dollars on emergency department visits because 87 percent of the patients are Medi-Cal beneficiaries or uninsured, so reimbursement is not equitable. The equity funding in Assembly Bill 2426 would help make up for the losses.
AB 2426 would require the state’s Department of Health Care Services to create a directed payment program in Medi-Cal managed care for outpatient hospital services, with reimbursement that is approximately equal to the hospital’s costs for those services. This would ensure that MLKCH has money to recruit doctors into the South Los Angeles facility, and allow it to focus on preventive care and outpatient services that could prevent emergency department visits.
Today, L.A. Care sent a letter to Assembly Member Chris Holden, the Chair of the Assembly Appropriations Committee, urging support for AB 2426. The bill was introduced by Assembly Member Chris Gipson and Senator Steven Bradford, both of whom represent communities served by MLKCH, a hospital providing high quality, lifesaving care to one of the most underserved areas in the state. L.A. Care is committed to advancing health equity, and this legislation would be a major step of ensuring health equity in the communities around MLKCH.