California hospitals had to put charity care rules on their websites months ago. Some didn't do it
LOS ANGELES — To help patients who are financially strapped, California lawmakers decided to stiffen state requirements for hospitals to offer free or discounted care.
AB 1020, which went into effect in January, makes more people eligible for discounted care, increasing the income levels under which hospitals are supposed to offer it to uninsured patients or those facing high costs. And it also added a simple requirement: Hospitals must prominently post their financial assistance policies on their websites.
"You should not have to have an attorney to get what the hospitals are required to give by law," said Tracy Douglas, an attorney with Bet Tzedek who works on a medical-legal partnership team at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. "That's what AB 1020 aimed to fix."
Yet more than nine months after the California law went into effect, some hospitals still had not put up their charity care policies in readily apparent spots on their websites, The Los Angeles Times found after reviewing websites for hospitals around the state. Several updated their pages
