CA offers funds to hospitals hit by King-Drew closure

When troubled Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital closed this August, patients in south Los Angeles were dispersed to hospitals across the region. Because King-Drew served a poor neighborhood, many of the patients inherited by surviving hospitals ended up taking on bigger indigent care loads than they'd had before. Now, California has enacted a bill that will reroute up to $100 million per year in Medicaid disproportionate-share payments to the affected hospitals. The payments will be available for three years.

Even with this boost, however, area hospitals aren't happy with their situation. For example, nearby Downey Regional has seen losses from treating Medicaid patients double in the scant few months since King-Harbor closed. The hospital has also seen ambulance traffic increase by 25 percent.

To find out more about the funding:
- read this Modern Healthcare article

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