Board-owned or operated general hospitals must treat eligible Louisiana residents in need of medical services, and they may not deny emergency care or medically necessary care to certain jailed or imprisoned persons.
§6. Admission criteria to state-supported charity hospitals Any bona fide resident of the state of Louisiana who is in need of medical services, including but not limited to the uninsured, shall be eligible for treatment by any general hospital owned or operated by the board in accordance with policy adopted by the LSU Board of Supervisors. However, any person with an income greater than two hundred percent of the applicable federal poverty guideline as published in the Federal Register by the United States Department of Health and Human Services and who is otherwise eligible for treatment may be denied access to non-emergency medical care if such person refuses to pay any appropriately adopted reasonable charges for treatment or service received, unless the patient's clinical condition requires immediate treatment as determined by the patient's treating physician, or if the person has been treated in the past, billed based upon his or her ability to pay, and has refused to pay for previous medical services without justifiable excuse or to make arrangements for periodic partial payments, unless the patient's clinical condition requires immediate treatment as determined by the patient's treating physician or medical director. In no event shall emergency treatment be denied to anyone; and in no event shall any person housed in any parish jail facility or state prison in the state of Louisiana, irrespective of his state of residency, be denied medically necessary medical treatment in the nearest general hospital owned or operated by the board. Further, any prisoner treated at a general hospital owned or operated by the board shall have those services paid through the facility receiving state funding for the incarceration of that prisoner. Amended by Acts 1975, No. 534, §1; Acts 1977, No. 669, §1; Acts 1983, No. 671, §1; Acts 1991, No. 893, §1; Acts 2003, No. 906, §§2, 3, eff. July 1, 2003; Acts 2018, No. 206, §5.