FULLERTON : U.S. Bows to St. Jude on Its ‘Mom-Mobile’

Federal officials have reversed their position and will allow St. Jude Hospital and Rehabilitation Center to receive Medi-Cal reimbursements for prenatal services offered from a van.

Thursday’s announcement by a top Medicaid official in San Francisco paves the way for St. Jude to start a novel prenatal program. Hospital officials said they now expect to start offering prenatal services from the “Mom-Mobile” by March 15.

St. Jude chief executive officer Paul Viviano called the news “fantastic!”

“Without doubt, it will enhance our ability to serve poor women in North County,” Viviano said. “Lack of transportation is a serious obstacle to those seeking (prenatal) care.”

In Orange County, thousands of women each year receive no prenatal care--or get it late in pregnancy. Sometimes, the problem is lack of child care or transportation, health officials say. The result of little or no care has been high-risk deliveries and premature babies, some born too ill to survive, health authorities say.

The change in federal policy applies not only to St. Jude but also to hospitals around the country, according to Lawrence L. McDonough, the Medicaid official who announced the policy change.

Previously, federal officials had maintained that they could not reimburse St. Jude for prenatal care offered off hospital grounds. Under federal regulations that govern Medi-Cal, the state version of Medicaid, outpatient clinics could be reimbursed for off-site care but not hospitals.

In a letter to state health officials this week, McDonough said his superiors had reconsidered and decided that hospitals could be reimbursed after all for mobile services.

Such care could either be considered outpatient services or clinic services, his letter said. In any event, a van offering prenatal care “brings the care into the community where it’s needed,” McDonough said in a brief interview Thursday.

The change in stance comes after months of lobbying by St. Jude, county officials, state Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) and a series of protest letters from the state Department of Health Services.

Last summer, in an effort to improve access to prenatal care, county officials gave St. Jude $250,000 in state tobacco-tax money to start the prenatal van effort. But when the hospital could not get federal permission to be reimbursed for services from the van, St. Jude used the money instead to offer free prenatal care at the hospital.