BOARD OKS PAYMENTS TO HOSPITAL.

Byline: Naush Boghossian Staff Writer

VALENCIA - The Los Angeles County Claims Board approved a $1.6 million settlement to the bankrupt Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital, money owed by the Sheriff's Department for treating inmates from the Peter J. Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic.

The money will go toward payments to the hospital's creditors as part of its reorganization plan.

The Board of Supervisors, and then the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, must approve the settlement before the hospital receives the money.

The supervisors are scheduled to vote on the settlement Oct. 22, and Newhall Memorial could receive a check as early as a week later.

``We expect the Sheriff's Department to pay us and we have been planning to use these dollars to pay the creditors,'' said hospital spokeswoman Andie Bogdan. The hospital's reorganization plan stipulates that the money will be used for the down payment to creditors.

The Sheriff's Department's debt to the hospital continued to grow because Newhall Memorial continued to admit and treat inmates as patients even after its contract with the county lapsed in 1999.

Without a contract, the Sheriff's Department did not pay for any of the medical services rendered by the hospital after April 1, 1999, and the bills were overlooked during the hospital's management turnover and subsequent bankruptcy.

Hospital management renegotiated with the county and agreed on terms for a new contract, which sets a reimbursement rate of 40 percent of gross medical charges for future care and treatment provided to jail inmates and suspects arrested by sheriff's deputies.

The new contract has not yet been approved by the Board of Supervisors. Hospital officials expect the supervisors to review the contract when they consider the $1.6 million settlement.

Until approval of a new contract, the hospital will continue treating inmates and collect payments retroactively.

The Sheriff's Department, which runs the Pitchess jail complex, owes more money to doctors who provided inmate care at Newhall Memorial, Bogdan said. Those separate claims have not been resolved.

``We don't know the amount the Sheriff's Department owes the doctors, but we know there's money owed to them and we'd like to see these physicians be paid,'' Bogdan said.