Doctors at nine private hospitals affected by the closure of Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital can take advantage of a new reimbursement program from the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, according to Carol Meyer, the agency's director of governmental affairs.

Meyer publicized the program during a Nov. 13, 2007, meeting with physician representatives at the Los Angeles County Medical Association headquarters. Meyer also reminded doctors about two existing county programs that reimburse physicians for indigent patient care, called the Physician Services for Indigents Program and the PSIP--Trauma Hospital.

The PSIP--Impacted Hospital Program became effective Aug. 10, 2007. "For the [indigent] patients who come in ... from the area that used to be served by MLK, we are paying 100 percent of Medicare [for] up to six days' length of stay," Meyer says.

The new program is designed to be as simple as possible for doctors, requiring hospitals to do much of the patient screening. "As soon as we get a valid claim on a patient from the hospitals, then we will pay the doctors," Meyer explains. "The hospitals are required to determine that the patient came from the specific geographic area, and that the patient is a resident of Los Angeles County."

In November, LACMA sent a letter to MLK-area hospital CEOs to inform them of the new program. Funds are available to participating private physicians at hospitals signing on to the program, and seven of nine signed on by early December.

Many physicians may be unaware of the county's existing PSIP efforts, says Ralph Di Libero, MD, former LACMA president and the meeting's mediator. "You can get reimbursed for a patient who is uninsured and cannot afford to pay--anywhere in the county of Los Angeles," he says. "If we can start a program to get everybody signed up [for the PSIP programs], it would be an important thing to do."

The two existing programs pay better than Medi-Cal, but not as well as Medicare, Meyer says.