Charity care levels at academic medical centers in Pennsylvania can vary dramatically, depending on the hospital, according to data from the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council.
Using that data, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette compared charity care levels at Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and TempleUniversityHospital, both in Philadelphia. Both are academic medical centers in neighborhoods where more than 40 percent of residents live below the federal poverty level. HUP and Temple are five miles apart.
In 2014, the HUP recorded $2.2 billion in net patient revenue and $150 million in operating income, making it the largest grossing hospital in the state. It ranked among the bottom third of hospitals for charity care in the state, however, having spent only 0.32 percent of its patient revenue on charity care costs.
The same year, Temple reported $856 million in net patient revenue and recorded a $5 million operating loss. It spent $29.2 million on charity care, or 3.42 percent of its patient revenue, placing it among the top 13 hospitals for charity care in the state.
The hospitals implement their charity care policies in different ways — Temple doesn't make patients apply for charity care, while HUP does.
"When you have a lot of activity coming through your emergency room, and they live in that ZIP code of deep poverty, we don't go through the process to figure out if they have the means," Temple University Health System CFO Bob Lux told Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "We take them straight to charity care."
In a statement emailed to Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a HUP spokesperson said, "The University of Pennsylvania Health System reviews it charity care policies regularly to provide the best for our patients. We are proud that our robust outreach and financial counseling process enables many eligible uninsured and underinsured patients to obtain medical assistance to access healthcare. On average, about 90 percent of our patients who apply are able to gain coverage."