Medical Debt Is Crushing Hospital Patients in Los Angeles. Health Officials May Have a Fix.

LOS ANGELES — Every Tuesday, Naman Shah sees tuberculosis patients at a small public clinic in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. Shah, a physician and epidemiologist at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, pores over images of battered lungs, listens to labored breathing, and checks medications. It’s part of an initiative dating to the early 20th century to control infections so tuberculosis doesn’t spread. “We like doing things upstream,” Shah said, “meaning before they happen, not after the damage is done.” Today, Shah and his colleagues are applying the same principle to medical debt. A key part of that effort is a new system to allow every hospital in Los Angeles County to easily screen patients for financial aid. The goal: to stop low-income families from getting a bill that buries them in debt. Shah estimates this system could prevent several hundred million dollars of medical debt every year. Vicious Cycle Nationwide, an estimated 100 million adults have some form of healthcare debt. In Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous, public health officials calculate that about 800,000 residents have medical bills they can’t pay. “The impacts of medical debt w...