Neighborhood Legal Services

Health and Medical Legal Community Partnership (MLCP):NLSLA is at the forefront of health advocacy in California. NLSLA advocates utilize direct representation, policy advocacy, and impact litigation to resolve widespread health access and health equity issues and run the nation's largest network of Medical Legal Community Partnerships (MLCP), through which lawyers collaborate with healthcare providers in clinics and hospitals to address the social determinants of health. NLSLA piloted the project for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. It proved so successful that today NLSLA's MLCP model is a permanent feature of the Los Angeles County health delivery system. NLSLA is also the largest member of the Health Consumer Alliance--a network of nine legal assistance programs operated by community-based legal services organizations across the State of California. As part of the alliance, NLSLA runs the Health Consumer Center--the largest project in the Alliance--which provides free legal information and representation to individuals struggling to access health insurance coverage or care and resolve problems with their health plans. Our advocates also work with clients to eliminate medical debt. This work includes challenging improper insurance denials, requesting financial assistance, overturning insurance denials, filing complaints with California's Department of Managed Health Care, working directly with providers and Medi-Cal, and State Fair Hearings. By utilizing these different strategies, in 2024, HCC's advocates successfully relieved more than $1,000,000 of client medical debt and recovered over $80,000 in bad medical debt. In 2024, NLSLA closed 1,893 cases related to health issues.