Rudy Diaz offered the Board of Supervisors several excuses Tuesday for why his health clinic system, the Community Health Foundation of East Los Angeles, had charged indigent patients for medical care while being reimbursed by the county to see those patients for free. The number of uninsured patients is increasing, Diaz attested.
Government funding is down.
And if someone at the nonprofit clinic network had been charging patients that CHF is paid to see for free, it was an individual trying to cash in who hasn't been identified, Diaz claimed. Supervisor Gloria Molina didn't appear to buy any of it. After giving Diaz a tongue-lashing and suggesting that CHF should take a hard look at its management, Molina called for tighter oversight of all private companies participating in the county's health clinic privatization scheme. On April 13, two clinics which CHF took over from the county in its privatization program will revert to county control. Two other CHF clinics will lose their county funding.