In around 2000 while working at a Rolling Hills Estates medical office, Aqdas Kuraishi asked one of his patients with a thyroid condition why he had taken so long to come in for a checkup.
"He said, 'I lost my job,'" Kuraishi recalled.
As a result, the patient had also lost his medical insurance and was reluctant to pay for a visit out of his own pocket.
So Kuraishi decided to stop charging him until he found another job six months later.
Kuraishi did the same for several of his other patients who were temporarily unemployed.
Eight years later, with the economy tanking, Kuraishi and a fellow doctor are making the same gesture to their current patients.
"All established patients of our practice who have lost their jobs shall receive their medical care that the doctors do in their office free," Kuraishi wrote as an informal policy. "Your (job) termination slip is your insurance for our services till you find your new position."
Read the fulls story in Friday's edition.
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