Health Law

NON PROFIT HOSPITAL CHARITY CARE ?OUT OF THE CLOSET? WITH PPACA?

By Greg Piche'

Sen. Charles Grassley (R) Iowa, arranged to insert language in Section 9007 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the health reform bill signed into law in March of 2010 that requires not for profit hospitals to adopt and disclose financial assistance policies for the medically underserved who are not covered by insurance. The American Hospital Association has long argued that mandatory charitable care disclosure policies are unnecessary and that the need can be met through voluntary disclosure procedures.

In May, 2010 The Access Project and Community Catalyst in Boston, MA published a report of their survey of a number of non-profit hospitals where they tried to obtain information about their charitable care programs. See Pryor, Rukavina, Hoffman and Lee ?Best Kept Secrets:Are Non-profit Hospitals Informing Patients About Charity Care Programs.?  Perhaps, not surprisingly the answer appears to be ?no.? They surveyed 99 randomly selected hospitals in the summer of 2009 to obtain charity care information. 85 of the hospitals mentioned the availability of charity care.  Less than half, 42, would provide application for the care. Only 26 would provide information about who qualified for charity care. Only 36 provided the information in a language other than English.

There appears to be a wide variation in the amounts of charity medical care provided by non-profit hospitals. A study undertaken by the IRS in 2009 found that 14% of the non-profit hospitals accounted for 63% of the aggregate uncompensated hospital care expenditures. IRS Exempt Organization Hospital Study, February,2009.  See also Allen & Bobardieri, ?Much is given by hospitals,more is asked: Non-profits reaping more in tax breaks than they report in charity work. Some slay that must change,? Boston Globe, May 31, 2009; Knight ?2 Hospitals got millions, spent little on charity care, SFGate.com, January 28, 2008.

Those valuable exemptions may not come as cheaply or easily in the future under health care reform, as they have in the past.

Full post as published by Healthcare Law Blog on September 28, 2010 (boomark / email).