About HCA

HCA is a partnership of consumer assistance programs operated by community-based legal services organizations. Our common mission is to help low-income people obtain essential health care. Our 2008-2009 Annual Report is available online.

Since opening its doors in October 1998, HCA has helped more than 129,000 low-income consumers with health access problems. HCA receives its core funding from The California Endowment. The initial Endowment grant included an independent evaluation of HCA's work by the USC Division of Community Health. The evaluators' final report was released February 19, 2003.

Operating in Thirteen California Counties

HCA's local Health Consumer Centers operate in thirteen counties that, together, include more than three fifths of poor Californians: Alameda, El Dorado, Fresno, Imperial, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange, Placer, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Mateo and Yolo. They are supported in this work by the National Health Law Program, which serves as lead agency, and the Western Center on Law and Poverty.

Helping individuals with Medi-Cal eligibility and service issues

Medi-Cal eligibility and service issues predominate in our work on behalf of individual clients. Our clients' ethnicity is as follows:

• Latino 52%
• Anglo 27%
• Asian-American Pacific-Islander 10%
• African-American 7%
• American Indian or Other 4%

Establishing/maintaining, and ensuring access to health coverage

Our two main priorities are (a) helping consumers establish or maintain health coverage; and (b) ensuring that low-income consumers with health coverage get good access to essential services, including through managed care plans. We are committed to resolving problems in the most efficient manner possible, without wasting resources in unnecessary formal proceedings. Our closed cases were resolved as follows:

• Counsel and advice to consumer 50.2%
• Negotiation without formal proceedings 8.6%
• Other brief service 25.7%
• Administrative appeals decision 2.1%
• Negotiated settlement of litigation (primarily collection actions against indigent consumers) 1.9%
• Referral to other agencies 0.4%
• Court decision (primarily collection actions against indigent consumers) 0.1
• Other outcomes (including client withdrawal, client ineligible for service, claim meritless) 11.0%

Top priority: solving the individual consumer's problem

Of course, our top priority is to help solve the individual consumer's problem. But we also view the stream of low-income consumers coming to our doors as an important opportunity to diagnose systemic health access issues. Our diagnosis is aided by a database system that collects uniform, comprehensive information about the problems consumers bring to us and the results we achieve. Put simply, we are in a position to provide, not just compelling anecdotes, but also the objective data needed to discern the extent to which problems are truly systemic. We then work collaboratively with other stakeholders to seek effective solutions to the problems our consumers experience.

Providing significant community education

In addition to individual assistance and work on systemic issues, we provide significant community education about such topics as Medi-Cal coverage for working families and immigrants, how to use Medi-Cal HMOs effectively and the services HCA offers. Each month, more than 6,300 low-income consumers and community organization staff attend our education and outreach events. Consumer education materials in 13 languages are available on our Web site.

On the ground perspective, successfully solving problems

Taken together, these activities give us a unique "on the ground" perspective about health access and quality issues facing low-income consumers. As consumers begin to experience new problems, we quickly see them reflected in our caseload. Likewise, as old problems are addressed successfully, we see them fade away among the consumers seeking our help.