As used in this article, the following terms have the following meanings:
(a)CA 健康与安全 Code § 127450(a) “Allowance for financially qualified patient” means, with respect to emergency care rendered to a financially qualified patient, an allowance that is applied after the emergency physician’s charges are imposed on the patient, due to the patient’s determined financial inability to pay the charges.
(b)CA 健康与安全 Code § 127450(b) “Emergency care” means emergency medical services and care, as defined in Section 1317.1, that is provided by an emergency physician in the emergency department of a hospital.
(c)CA 健康与安全 Code § 127450(c) “Emergency physician” means a
physician and surgeon licensed pursuant to Chapter 5 (commencing with Section 2000) of Division 2 of the Business and Professions Code who is credentialed by a hospital and either employed or contracted by the hospital to provide emergency medical services in the emergency department of the hospital, except that an “emergency physician” shall not include a physician specialist who is called into the emergency department of a hospital or who is on staff or has privileges at the hospital outside of the emergency department.
(d)CA 健康与安全 Code § 127450(d) “Federal poverty level” means the poverty guidelines updated periodically in the Federal Register by the United States Department of Health and Human Services under authority of subsection (2) of Section 9902 of Title 42 of the United States Code.
(e)CA 健康与安全 Code § 127450(e) “Financially qualified patient” means a patient who is both of the following:
(1)CA 健康与安全 Code § 127450(e)(1) A patient who is a self-pay patient or a patient with high medical costs.
(2)CA 健康与安全 Code § 127450(e)(2) A patient who has a family income that does not exceed 400 percent of the federal poverty level.
(f)CA 健康与安全 Code § 127450(f) “Hospital” means a facility that is required to be licensed under subdivision (a) of Section 1250, except a facility operated by the State Department of State Hospitals, the State Department of Developmental Services, or the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
(g)CA 健康与安全 Code § 127450(g) “Department” means the Department of Health Care Access and Information.
(h)CA 健康与安全 Code § 127450(h) “Self-pay patient” means a patient who does not have third-party coverage from a health insurer, health care service plan, Medicare, or Medicaid, and whose injury is not a compensable injury for purposes of workers’ compensation, automobile insurance, or other insurance as determined and documented by the emergency physician. Self-pay patients may include charity care patients.
(i)CA 健康与安全 Code § 127450(i) “A patient with high medical costs” means a person whose family income does not exceed 400 percent of the federal poverty level if that individual does not receive a discounted rate from the emergency physician as a result of their third-party coverage. For these purposes, “high medical costs” means any of the following:
(1)CA 健康与安全 Code § 127450(i)(1) Annual
out-of-pocket costs incurred by the individual at the hospital that provided emergency care that exceed 10 percent of the patient’s family income in the prior 12 months. Out-of-pocket costs means any expenses for medical care that are not reimbursed by insurance or a health coverage program, such as Medicare copays or Medi-Cal cost sharing.
(2)CA 健康与安全 Code § 127450(i)(2) Annual out-of-pocket expenses that exceed 10 percent of the patient’s family income, if the patient provides documentation of the patient’s medical expenses paid by the patient or the patient’s family in the prior 12 months. Out-of-pocket expenses means any expenses for medical care that are not reimbursed by insurance or a health coverage program, such as Medicare copays or Medi-Cal cost sharing. The emergency physician may waive the request for documentation.
(3)CA 健康与安全 Code § 127450(i)(3) A lower level determined by the emergency physician in accordance with the emergency physician’s discounted payment policy.
(j)CA 健康与安全 Code § 127450(j) “Patient’s family” means the following:
(1)CA 健康与安全 Code § 127450(j)(1) For persons 18 years of age and older, spouse, domestic partner, as defined in Section 297 of the Family Code, and dependent children under 21 years of age, or any age if disabled, consistent with Section 1614(a) of Part A of Title XVI of the Social Security Act, whether living at home or not.
(2)CA 健康与安全 Code § 127450(j)(2) For persons under 18 years of age or for a dependent child 18 to 20 years of age, inclusive, parent, caretaker relatives, and parent’s or caretaker relatives’ other dependent children under
21 years of age, or any age if disabled, consistent with Section 1614(a) of Part A of Title XVI of the Social Security Act.
