Minor consent services
If you are under age 18, you can receive some services without a parent's or guardian’s permission. These services are called minor consent services.
You may get the following services without your parent or guardian’s permission:
- Sexual assault services, including outpatient mental health care
- Pregnancy
- Family planning and birth control
- Abortion services
If you are 12 years old or older, you may also get these services without your parent's or guardian’s permission:
- Outpatient mental health care for:
- Sexual assault
- Incest
- Physical assault
- Child abuse
- When you have thoughts of hurting yourself or others
- HIV/AIDS prevention, testing, and treatment
- Sexually transmitted infections prevention, testing, and treatment
- Substance use disorder treatment
- To learn more, visit the Substance use disorder treatment services page in this handbook.
For pregnancy testing, family planning services, birth control services, or services for sexually transmitted infections, the doctor or clinic does not have to be part of the L.A. Care network. You can choose any Medi-Cal provider and go to them for these services without a referral or pre-approval (prior authorization).
For minor consent services that are not specialty mental health services, you can go to an in-network provider without a referral and without pre-approval (prior authorization). Your PCP does not have to refer you and you do not need to get pre-approval (prior authorization) from L.A. Care to get covered minor consent services.
Minor consent services that are specialty mental health services are not covered. Specialty mental health services are covered by the county mental health plan for the county where you live.
Minors can talk to a representative in private about their health concerns by calling the Nurse Advice Line 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including holidays at 1-800-249-3619 (TTY: 711).
L.A. Care will not send information about getting sensitive services to parents or guardians. To learn more
about how to ask for confidential communications related to sensitive services, read the Notice of Privacy Practices section of this handbook.