10 biggest charity care updates of the year

The 10 biggest charity care stories Becker's has covered this year:



  1. Washington instituted a new charity care law that established mandatory discounts and two tiers of hospitals, adopted procedures for retroactive Medicaid eligibility, and established a definition of "indigent persons."

 

  1. American Hospital Association CEO Rick Pollack responded to a Wall Street Journal article that indicated nonprofit hospitals lag behind for-profit hospitals in providing charity care. Mr. Pollack said the Journal "fails to recognize that charity care is only one part of a hospital's total community benefit."   

 

  1. A report from the state treasurer of North Carolina found that nonprofit hospitals bill patients eligible for charity care. 

 

  1. A report showed that nonprofit hospitals spent 2.3 percent of their revenue on charity care, compared to for-profit hospitals that spent 3.4 percent.

 

  1. Asheville, N.C.-based Mission Health received pushback from patient advocacy groups for not making its charity care application available online.  

 

  1. Patient advocacy groups criticized the Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic for the percentage of its revenue spent on charity care.

 

  1. California Attorney General Rob Bonta issued a consumer alert reminding hospitals that they are legally required to inform patients about charity care. 

 

  1. A report found that half of the hospitals are spending 1.4 percent or less of operating expenses on charity care. 

 

  1. In November, Mission Health posted its charity care application online, following the patient advocacy pushback.

 

  1.  A study of 150 large hospitals from Columbia-based University of South Carolina and Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University found that the COVID-19 pandemic led to a 31 percent increase in charity care. 

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