Hospital Loses Round in Bid to Get Clients From County : Health care: Community Memorial says it should be getting many of the paying patients who receive treatment at the public medical center. A court battle continues.

A judge Monday dealt a major blow to a private hospital’s efforts to keep paying patients from going to Ventura County’s public hospital.

Scrambling to compete in a shrinking health care market, Community Memorial Hospital officials filed suit nearly a year ago asking that Ventura County Medical Center be barred from accepting privately insured patients. The suit also demanded that the county hospital send more Medi-Cal insured patients to private facilities.

Community Memorial officials maintained that the county hospital should, as a state-mandated provider of last resort, treat only the indigent and leave paying patients to private hospitals.

Officials at Community Memorial took particular exception to a new plan that allows the county’s 6,000 employees to use the county facility for hospitalization and basic health care. They said that health plan constitutes unfair competition.

Judge Richard Abbe disagreed in his summary ruling in favor of the county--a decision resolving just one facet of the complex case.

“[A 1965 law] was enacted to allow the free choice of hospitals to those requiring hospital care and to eliminate discrimination or segregation based on economic disability,” he wrote. Abbe is a retired state appellate justice brought in to handle the case after four sitting judges were removed from the case for various reasons.

An opposite ruling would have “put every county hospital in the state out of business,” said Assistant County Counsel Noel Klebaum.

“The lawsuit was attacking the basis of how all county hospitals in the state operate,” Klebaum said. “It was an unprecedented lawsuit.”

Ventura County Supervisor Maggie Kildee said other counties have offered money to help fight the lawsuit. She said the county facility needs to treat paying patients to keep its doors open.

“If they had ruled against the way we operate that would have a major impact on us,” she said. “We would have had to go back to the old-fashioned way of operating where all of our tax dollars go to pay for indigent care and that’s all.”

County officials said the taxpayers have spent “hundreds of thousands of dollars” defending the lawsuit. Nobody could provide an exact cost of the litigation thus far.

But the meter is still running.

The private hospital’s contention that the county does not treat enough poor patients is still set for trial next month. Several related issues also remain unresolved.

Community Memorial Hospital attorneys were quick to put a positive spin on Abbe’s ruling, saying it would lead to a shorter trial.

“An appellate court will now decide the issue instead of a jury,” said attorney John Kirkland.

A trial is scheduled for Aug. 15 to hear the remaining challenges, including the private hospital’s contention that Ventura County Medical Center is failing in its state mandate to properly treat the poor.

“The Ventura County Medical Center refuses to accept the transfer of poor patients,” Kirkland said. “They move county employees to the front of the line and make the poor wait.”

The suit also alleges that ambulances sometimes take patients from some of the poorer neighborhoods to Community Memorial while transporting more affluent patients to the medical center. Three blocks separate the two hospitals in the heart of Ventura.

County officials maintain that declining revenues at the nonprofit Community Memorial Hospital led to the lawsuit.

“They have not been good neighbors,” Ventura County Supervisor Frank Schillo said. “It is not our fault what is happening to them. They need to take responsibility for their own problems. We are not their problem.”

Community Memorial officials referred all comment to their Los Angeles attorneys.

Staff writer Carlos Lozano contributed to this report.