The 10 biggest charity care stories Becker's has covered this year:
- 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."
- 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."
- A report from the state treasurer of North Carolina found that nonprofit hospitals bill patients eligible for charity care.
- 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.
- Asheville, N.C.-based Mission Health received pushback from patient advocacy groups for not making its charity care application available online.
- Patient advocacy groups criticized the Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic for the percentage of its revenue spent on charity care.
- California Attorney General Rob Bonta issued a consumer alert reminding hospitals that they are legally required to inform patients about charity care.
- A report found that half of the hospitals are spending 1.4 percent or less of operating expenses on charity care.
- In November, Mission Health posted its charity care application online, following the patient advocacy pushback.
- 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.