Although Orange County’s new program for the remaining uninsured population commenced on January 1, it will not be until late this week that hospitals will be able to start taking applications to cover services provided to those with urgent or emergent medical conditions. Patients in the new Medical Safety Net (MSN) program are required to access services through hospital emergency rooms only, even if they were served in the county’s prior program and suffer with chronic, debilitating conditions that have been treated in other, more appropriate settings such as community clinics.

Under their contracts with the county, hospitals are required to provide personnel to take MSN applications. Hospital personnel are trained by HASC’s Patient Access Services division. Now that the county’s application process is in place, HASC has scheduled the first training session for Thursday, April 10. Hospitals will be ready to take applications starting as soon as Friday, and will need to complete applications for patients who received services from January 1 forward.

As of April 7, 75 hospital employees have registered for the April 10 training and 30 others have registered for post training dates.

Contacts:

Ana Reza, (714) 750-2685, areza@hasc.org

Julie Puentes, (714) 663-0294, jpuentes@hasc.org