County Orders Study of Unpaid Hospital Bills : Finances: Board will review whether it should cover costs for those who are treated while in police custody but before arrest.

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 Newhall Memorial Hospital about $150,000 a year, just over 3% of the $4.5 million the Valencia hospital loses in uncompensated medical costs, its officials said.

“But every nickel counts when you’re looking at the dollars that hospitals spend on uncompensated care,” said Duffy Watson, the hospital’s administrator.

Hospital officials contend the county should pick up the tab because most of the patients ultimately become wards of the county jail system.

Some hospitals have succeeded in recovering a portion of these costs from local police agencies, but most have not, said Harriet Ulmer, the Los Angeles regional director for the Hospital Council of Southern California.

The county Sheriff’s Department currently pays private hospitals for some medical services, like blood-alcohol tests for drunk drivers and emergency care for jail inmates, but has balked at picking up the tab for indigent patients before they are arrested and booked. Sometimes, especially in cases involving psychiatric patients, police do not end up arresting the person.

Countywide, hospitals lose about $1.5 billion annually in uncompensated medical costs, Hospital Council spokesman David Langness said. No exact figures are available, but for some hospitals, the custody cases represent about 3% to 5% of the overall losses, he said.

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“It doesn’t seem like a big percentage, but it’s many, many millions of dollars,” Langness said. “That can make a difference when you consider the average profit margin for the minority of hospitals that are profitable.”

The county may be legally responsible for paying the bills, according to a recent opinion from the county counsel’s office. But there are a variety of conflicting legal opinions on the issue, particularly in cases involving more than one police agency, Ulmer said. “It’s going to take some state legislation to figure out who is responsible,” she said.

The supervisors ordered county administrators and health officials to study the issue and report back early next year.