California Health and Safety Code 127444 – (a) This article does not prohibit a hospital from uniformly …
(a) This article does not prohibit a hospital from uniformly imposing charges from its established charge schedule or published rates or preclude the recognition of a hospital’s established charge schedule or published rates for purposes of applying any payment limit, interim payment amount, or other payment calculation based upon a hospital’s rates or charges under the Medi-Cal program, the Medicare Program, workers’ compensation, or other federal, state, or local public program of health benefits.
(b) This article does not prohibit a hospital, debt collector, or debt buyer from selling or otherwise transferring patient debt to an organization that is exempt from taxation under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code for the explicit purpose of the tax-exempt organization abolishing the patient debt by cancellation of the indebtedness, or otherwise prohibit payment of the patient’s debt by a third party.
Terms Used In California Health and Safety Code 127444
- Charity: An agency, institution, or organization in existence and operating for the benefit of an indefinite number of persons and conducted for educational, religious, scientific, medical, or other beneficent purposes.
- Hospital: means a facility that is required to be licensed under subdivision (a), (b), or (f) of Section 1250, except a facility operated by the State Department of State Hospitals or the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. See California Health and Safety Code 127400
- Person: means any person, firm, association, organization, partnership, business trust, corporation, limited liability company, or company. See California Health and Safety Code 19
- State: means the State of California, unless applied to the different parts of the United States. See California Health and Safety Code 23
(c) A health care service plan, insurer, or any other person shall not reduce the amount it would otherwise reimburse a claim for hospital services because a hospital has waived, or will waive, collection of all or a portion of a patient’s bill for hospital services in accordance with the hospital’s charity care or discount payment policy, notwithstanding any contractual provision.
(Amended by Stats. 2021, Ch. 473, Sec. 14. (AB 1020) Effective January 1, 2022.)