LOS ANGELES — For years, a contentious dispute between Los Angeles County's health care leaders and the University of Southern California has seethed behind closed doors, injecting tension and acrimony in the operations at one of the nation's busiest public hospitals that climaxed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As early as 2019, officials at L.A. County-USC Medical Center in Boyle Heights began accusing USC of failing to live up to its contract obligations, where the county pays up to $170 million each year in return for USC's faculty doctors and nearly 1,000 medical residents treating some of the region's poorest patients.
The county has contended that USC repeatedly fell short of providing enough doctors under the contract while also "double-booking" its internists, cardiologists, and others — claiming they were scheduled to simultaneously treat patients at both the public hospital and the university's privately owned Keck Hospital across the street.
