An article in the New England Journal of Medicine questioned the validity of hospitals' community benefit, which reportedly accounted for 7.5 percent of their 2009 operating expenses nationwide, because the expenses pertained primarily to patient care but not to "community health improvement."
NEJM researchers studied about 1,800 acute-care hospitals' tax filings to analyze the financial benefit they provided to communities before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed in 2010 required non-profit hospitals to assess and publish their community needs and benefits. That provision was intended as an accountability measure to justify or call into question such hospitals' tax-exempt status, which totals an estimated $13 billion annually.
The researchers found more than 85 percent of the reported community benefit expenses were for direct care to patients, rather than serving the community at large, and almost half of the total was attributable to subsidizing discounted government-funded insurance plans, such as Medicaid.
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NEJM researchers studied about 1,800 acute-care hospitals' tax filings to analyze the financial benefit they provided to communities before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed in 2010 required non-profit hospitals to assess and publish their community needs and benefits. That provision was intended as an accountability measure to justify or call into question such hospitals' tax-exempt status, which totals an estimated $13 billion annually.
The researchers found more than 85 percent of the reported community benefit expenses were for direct care to patients, rather than serving the community at large, and almost half of the total was attributable to subsidizing discounted government-funded insurance plans, such as Medicaid.
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