LA County hopes data sharing will help reduce medical debt; Long Beach won't participate
County hospitals will soon be required to share medical debt data in hopes of identifying assistance gaps.
Los Angeles County residents are drowning in billions of dollars in collective medical debt. County officials hope that requiring hospitals to regularly report on the debt will help them identify “gaps in financial assistance” and reduce the burden.
Earlier this month, the LA County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to move forward with an ordinance requiring hospitals to report data on medical debt. Since Long Beach has its own health department, the ordinance will not apply to Long Beach Memorial or St. Mary Medical Center.
“Too many LA County residents have medical debt that they can’t afford and it is holding them back,” Supervisor Janice Hahn said in a statement. “If we can get data from hospitals on the patients who are burdened by medical debt and being sent to collections, we can begin to figure out how to tackle this problem going forward.”
