Anyone here with California Medi-Cal experience? I need advice?

You should be able to go to a ‘local’ clinic in your area that has a sliding fee arrangement. They’ll probably tell you the cost is anywhere from $40–100 for a visit. Ask if you can pay $20 now and the rest later. My uncle went to a clinic for years on $20 a visit even though the actual fee was $70. They’ll just bill you, which you can pay off at like $5/mo.

You can also go to your local County Health Office and ask to be seen as a walk-in under whatever they call the Homeless Program in your area. Where I live in Cali I think they expect at least a $1 contribution from the homeless patients.

Don’t give up. You can get medical care in Cali without going bankrupt, you just have to research the programs available. I strongly recommend going to your local County Health office and asking what you qualify for. When I wanted to be seen same-day, they themselves suggested I fill out the Homeless Patient $1 dollar contribution form thingy even though I told them I wasn’t homeless.

If you prefer, we can talk more about this via PM’s.

My son is a paramedic in Sacramento. He says that many people call 911 even if they’ve only had a headache for a few hours, and under the Medi-Cal program pay absolutely nothing for their ambulance ride or for medical diagnosis in the Emergency Room. Some people exploit these services so often that my son and his colleagues immediately know the address, and recognize and call the people by name as soon as they get there.

From what FM says above, apparently different people qualify for different programs, but it seems to me that if so many people can use these programs as their own free limousine / medical service, you should certainly be able to get help at little (or no) cost….
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You have to find a medical provider that accepts Medical – not all of the do. My son uses Molina Health for his family.

In the meantime, have yourself a Maalox moment. It may help you until you can get checked out.

@OneBadApple So you basically ‘answered’ this question to complain about poor people, right?

That’s a pretty big presumption right there, FM.

I’m not ‘complaining’ about anyone, just pointing out that if MediCal is so easy to exploit by people with no legitimate emergency, why should Whitetigress (or any Californian) have monetary concerns when they might have a real health problem ?