Atlanta's Grady Hospital Agrees to Provide Dialysis For Illegal Immigrants
September 02, 2010
After months of negotiations, Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta has arranged treatment for 38 end-stage renal patients, mostly illegal immigrants, to receive free dialysis, according to a report by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Grady, which receives county funding, finally agreed to help pay for continuing dialysis for most of the immigrants, while the rest will be distributed among local dialysis providers as charity cases.
Federal programs do not cover illegal immigrants and they will not be part of the coverage expansion in the healthcare reform law. This is expected to cause financial problems for hospitals with large populations of illegal immigrants like Grady. If Grady had refused to pay, the illegal immigrants would likely have ended up in its ED or some other hospital's ED, which would be required under the federal EMTALA law to stabilize them.
Read the Atlanta Journal-Constitution report on illegal immigrants.
Read other coverage about healthcare for illegal immigrants:
- Public Hospitals Face Enormous Challenges under Health Reform
- 5 Significant Ways Health Reform Could Impact Hospitals
- Reader Suggests Four-Point Healthcare Plan
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