Gardena Hospital Is Rejecting Medi-Cal : 200-Bed Facility Cites Growing Losses

Memorial Hospital of Gardena, joining a growing number of hospitals in Los Angeles County, announced Friday that it would no longer accept Medi-Cal patients, effective immediately.

The 200-bed hospital cited Medi-Cal’s “cumbersome” procedures and low reimbursement rates for its decision to stop treating such patients. The hospital by law cannot turn away from its emergency room Medi-Cal recipients and indigents without insurance.

Losing Money

“We’re losing money,” hospital spokeswoman Andrea Rowe said. “Our charges are more than they are giving us.”

John Rodriguez, who oversees Medi-Cal operations for the state Department of Health Services, said hospitals have not substantiated their claims that the state vastly under pays them under the Medi-Cal system.

He added that despite the decline in the number of hospitals admitting Medi-Cal patients, the overall quality of care for such patients has not decreased because there is sufficient space at other hospitals to care for all Medi-Cal patients.

The Gardena hospital declined to specify how much money it calculates it loses treating Medi-Cal patients. Nor would it divulge the number of Medi-Cal patients it treats. Such patients are referred to the hospital by physicians who practice there.

However, the hospital, in figures recently submitted to state health officials, estimated that in the last fiscal year it was paid $2.8 million less for Medi-Cal services than it had billed Medi-Cal patients.

The investor-owned hospital does not hold a contract with the state to provide Medi-Cal services. But because there are too few hospitals in its area willing to sign such contracts, state officials have deemed the area “open.” That means Gardena, as well as any hospital in the area, may treat Medi-Cal patients.

In recent years a number of hospitals, citing the same reasons as Gardena, have stopped admitting Medi-Cal patients. During the past year alone, eight hospitals that held Medi-Cal contracts in Los Angeles County have dropped out of the system, according to the Hospital Council of Southern California.

Contrary to Rodriguez’s assertion that patient care has not been affected by the decrease, Council spokesman David Langness said: “It’s getting harder and harder for poor people to find care. They are getting squeezed out of the system.”

Langness said the hospital industry estimates that for each dollar of care a hospital provides to a Medi-Cal patient, it is reimbursed 50 cents or less.

Both a county health official and an official at Robert F. Kennedy Medical Center in Hawthorne, which holds a Medi-Cal contract, said they could not predict what impact Gardena’s decision would have on patient volumes at nearby hospitals.

“It’s unfortunate when another hospital decides to be selective or not to meet all the needs of its community,” Kennedy spokeswoman Suzan Vida said. “It is just a greater burden to other health care facilities in the area.”