Texas hospitals will implement a new policy today that requires them to ask patients about their legal status in America.
This move comes as part of an executive order from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, which aims to track the costs of treating people without a legal status in Texas, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
The order, first announced on Aug. 8, was prompted by Abbott’s concerns about the financial strain that President Joe Biden’s immigration policies have placed on Texas, particularly in light of the rise in undocumented immigrants entering the state in recent years.
“Texans should not have to shoulder the burden of financially supporting medical care for illegal immigrants. That is why today I issued an Executive Order requiring the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to collect and report healthcare costs for illegal immigrants in our state,” Abbott said in a previous press release.
Under the new order, hospitals must directly ask whether patients are U.S. citizens or legally present in the country. However, patients are not obligated to answer these questions to receive medical care.
Hospitals across Texas have been preparing for this change for months, working to assure patients that their care will remain unaffected by their responses to the legal status inquiries. Health care providers have also been directed to tell patients that their answers will not impact or influence the quality of care they receive, reported AP News.
The data collection for the new immigration status questions will officially begin in March, with hospitals required to report on the number of patients seeking care, categorized by their legality status. A draft of the reporting guidelines indicates that hospitals will not need to submit personal identifiers, according to AP News, but will need to provide data on visits and associated costs for certain patients, including those for patients covered by Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Some critics of the new law point to Florida’s experience with a similar situation, where similar policies have been enacted.
A report in the Sunshine State revealed that nearly 8% of patients in Florida opted not to disclose their legal status during admissions from June to December 2023. That study also states that less than 1% of individuals who visited the emergency room or were hospitalized disclosed that they were in the U.S. without legal status.
However, according to a report by Texas Scorecard, Texas alone still spends an estimated $152 million each year for housing, between $62 million and $90 million for emergency Medicaid services, and as much as $717 million for uncompensated hospital care for undocumented immigrants.