Texas to Begin Gathering Noncitizen Treatment Data from Hospitals Statewide; Texas Hospitals Must Now Ask Patients Whether They’re In the U.S. Legally. Here’s How It Works

Texas to begin gathering noncitizen treatment data from hospitals statewide:

Beginning November 1, Texas Governor Greg Abbott will require hospitals in the Lone Star State to disclose information about patients who are noncitizens.

Abbott plans to report findings gathered by Texas public hospitals to the federal government, whose border policies he blames for the $3 billion in uninsured care that is not reimbursed statewide.

Under Executive Order GA-46, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) will collect information on illegal immigrants who use Texas public hospitals for both inpatient and emergency care. HHSC will also report healthcare costs due to “reckless” open border policies under the Biden-Harris administration.

GA-46 was first established on August 8, but will officially go into effect on November 1. Public hospitals in Texas have until March 1, 2025 to gather and report the quarter’s data to the state of Texas.

“Executive Order 46 will certainly be complied with,” said Stephen Love with the DFW Hospital Council to FOX 4 Dallas. “They’re working within their own teams, their legal counsel, their people to do the registrations, whether it be in the ER or outpatient on how they were going to capture this information.”

Gov. Abbott’s release on Executive Order 46 specifies that while patients must be asked if they are a U.S. citizen, “any response to such questions will not affect patient care.””[Gov. Abbott] made it clear we still need to treat them if it’s an emergency situation. So this is not designed in any way to say that that should influence whether you treat the patient or not,” said Love to FOX 4 Dallas.

“[Gov. Abbott] made it clear we still need to treat them if it’s an emergency situation. So this is not designed in any way to say that that should influence whether you treat the patient or not,” said Love to FOX 4 Dallas. —>READ MORE HERE

Texas hospitals must now ask patients whether they’re in the U.S. legally. Here’s how it works:

Texas hospitals must ask patients starting Friday whether they are in the U.S. legally and track the cost of treating people without legal status following an order by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott that expands the state’s clash with the Biden administration over immigration.

Critics fear the change could scare people away from hospitals in Texas, even though patients are not required to answer the questions to receive medical care. The mandate is similar to a policy that debuted last year in Florida, where Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is also a frequent critic of the federal government’s handling of illegal crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Texas hospitals have spent months preparing for the change and have sought to reassure patients that it won’t affect their level of care.

Here’s what to know:

Under the executive order announced by Abbott in August, hospitals must ask patients if they are citizens in the U.S. and whether they are lawfully present in the country.

Patients have the right to withhold the information and hospital workers must tell them their responses will not affect their care, as required by federal law.

Hospitals are not required to begin submitting reports to the state until March. An early draft of a spreadsheet made by state health officials to track data does not include fields to submit patient names or personal information.

Providers will fill out a breakdown of visits by inpatient and emergency care patients and document whether they are lawfully present in the country, citizens or not lawfully present in the U.S.

The reports will also add up costs for those covered by Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP; and the cost for patients without it.

“Texans should not have to shoulder the burden of financially supporting medical care for illegal immigrants,” Abbott said when he announced the policy. —>READ MORE HERE

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