Final Appeal to Save Accreditation of King/Drew Medical Center Denied

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An appeal by Los Angeles County to halt the withdrawal of accreditation of Martin Luther King/Drew Medical Center was denied Tuesday by a key hospital commission. The decision will prevent some poor patients from being admitted to the hospital and cost it at least $13 million in annual patient revenues.


The Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, which first decided in September that the troubled Willowbrook hospital did not meet its standards, sent notice to the county that it was denying a final appeal of its decision.


County officials, meanwhile, vowed to seek reinstatement of the accreditation over the next nine to 12 months after improving care the facility.


The commission is the leading private accreditation body in the United States and the loss of its approval a rare act will prevent the hospital from admitting Medi-Cal patients on a non-emergency basis.


Currently the hospital is the primary admitting facility for about 9,200 Medi-Cal patients who are members of the county’s Community Health Plan, a Medi-Cal managed care insurer.


As of Feb. 1 new entrants into the program will be shifted to St. Francis Medical Center and existing members will be shifted on their annual renewal dates, said John Wallace, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.


“We just received the notification today, but it had been expected,” said Wallace, who said the department has been in the process of developing contingency plans to handle the loss of accreditation.


There are only about two to three Community Health Plan members treated at the hospital on any given day (out of a daily census of about 190 patients), but the loss of those patients will still cost the hospital about $11 million annually.


The hospital is also expected to lose about $2.4 million annually because the hospital will now not be allowed to treat pediatric patients who are funded through the California Children’s Services program. The hospital has no contracts with private insurers to be a primary admitting facility.


The lack of accreditation will also force administrators at the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, which uses MLK as its primary training facility, to decide whether to continue resident training programs there. The decision, however, is a discretionary one by doctors who run the programs.

There are other training programs at the hospital, including those for radiologists and respiratory therapists, that could be affected, and it is not clear whether the county will be able to continue treating psychiatric patients who are admitted against their own will at MLK.


The commission’s decision reaffirms the decision by the county last year to close the trauma unit at the hospital. State law requires trauma hospitals to be accredited.


The hospital is being run by a consulting firm brought on last year. That contract with Navigant Consulting Inc. requires the firm to do all it can to have the hospital accredited again.


Still up in the air is a separate decision on whether the hospital will lose its federal funding, another fear for the county after problems were uncovered in the way it operates the psychiatric ward.


A negative decision by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services could cost the county $200 million annually and force a virtual shutdown of the facility.

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