Anaheim Hospital Accepts 1-Year Medi-Cal Contract

Six days after another large Orange County hospital announced it was quitting the Medi-Cal system, Western Medical Center-Anaheim officials accepted a one-year Medi-Cal contract for indigent care.

The hospital and its affiliated institution, Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, had quit Medi-Cal in 1988, citing losses.

Western Medical chief financial officer Glen Kazahaya was cautious Thursday about whether the Medi-Cal system was still working.

“It’s still a calculated risk,” he said. He said the hospital corporation was “looking for community support to help subsidize the losses Medi-Cal hospitals typically incur.”

Private contributions are being sought to subsidize an innovative, 15-bed birthing center for Medi-Cal patients at Western Medical Center-Anaheim, Kazahaya said.

Earlier this year, county officials gave the hospital $1.3 million in tobacco tax money for the center in hopes that it would relieve crowding in Medi-Cal maternity wards. But Kazahaya predicted that the center’s full cost will range from $2.5 to $4 million.

Under the new agreement, the 206-bed Anaheim hospital will join the Medi-Cal system on Aug. 1, Kazahaya said.

The contract also provides that the nonprofit corporation’s 327-bed hospital in Santa Ana will offer obstetrical care, neonatal intensive care, pediatrics and pediatric intensive care to Medi-Cal patients, he said. But he noted that the Medi-Cal contract was for the Anaheim hospital only, with some services delegated to the Santa Ana hospital.

Kazahaya’s news came nearly a week after Medi-Cal’s second largest provider in Orange County, Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center, announced that it would quit the system in November. Noting that indigent patients were crowding out paying patients at the 293-bed hospital, administrator Richard Butler said he hoped Fountain Valley’s move would persuade state officials to halt their contracting system in the county and instead allow each hospital to accept some Medi-Cal patients.

So far, however, the contracting system is still in effect in northern and central Orange County, where a dozen hospitals have formal agreements to provide non-emergency services to Medi-Cal patients.