Ventura County hospital officials said Friday they are in far better shape to weather the impending loss of state Medi-Cal payments than their Los Angeles counterparts.

But some cautioned they can't last forever without state funding, which was cut off Thursday in the wake of a continuing budget crisis.

So far, the funding cutoff will not affect Ventura County Medi-Cal patients, already stung by reductions in their coverage in the past few years. But many said they are nervous about the future.

"My son is on Medi-Cal and I depend on it for shots and checkups," said Debra Reid, 21, who brought her son Aaron, 2, into the West Ventura Family Care Clinic for a checkup. "If they were to cut it off, he wouldn't have any medical care."

Some Los Angeles County hospitals have predicted they will shut down within five days without Medi-Cal funding. But because of substantial reserves, Ventura County-sponsored medical facilities can last for at least three months, officials said.

"I don't have the anguish of some other hospital administrators because we are fortunate enough to have reserves," said Pierre Durand, administrator of the Ventura County Medical Center, which receives 50%, or $30 million, of its budget from Medi-Cal. "We are open for business and open for Medi-Cal."

But private medical centers in the county that carry Medi-Cal contracts will be hard hit by the halt in funding.

"We get $25,000 to $30,000 a week from Medi-Cal and we are already operating in the red," said Rulon Barlow, chief executive officer at Santa Paula Memorial Hospital. "To lose that much weekly most certainly will impact us. Will it cut services? I don't know."

Barlow said 10% of his hospital's business is done with Medi-Cal. If funding is cut for more than a few weeks, he said, "we will be forced to look at whether or not we can continue to provide services." Clinicas del Camino Real, a private network of four clinics in the county, will continue to accept Medi-Cal patients in the hope that the state will quickly reimburse the organization once the budget crisis is over, said Al Limon, Clinicas program coordinator.

"They will owe us the money," he said. But he added that the clinics will not hold out forever. "We are operating on a deficit now, and we have to rely on a line of credit." Limon estimated the clinics could remain open for another two to three months without state funding.