LOS ANGELES COUNTY : Board to Study Payment of Suspects’ Hospital Bills

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed Tuesday to study whether the county should pay the private hospital bills of drunk drivers and others who receive medical treatment while in police custody before being arrested.

The issue was pressed by officials of Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in the Santa Clarita Valley. It is also being closely watched by administrators of the county’s 119 private acute-care hospitals, which lose millions annually because many drunk drivers and psychiatric patients in police custody refuse to pay their bills, pleading poverty.

Under federal law, hospitals are required to provide emergency medical care to everyone regardless of their ability to pay, a spokesman for the Hospital Council of Southern California said.

The custody cases cost Henry Mayo about $150,000 a year, just over 3% of the $4.5 million the hospital loses in uncompensated medical costs, officials there said. Countywide, hospitals lose about $1.5 billion annually in uncompensated medical costs, a hospital council spokesman said. No exact figures are available, but for some hospitals, the custody cases represent about 3% to 5% of the overall losses, he said.