An analysis of the charity care policies of 2500 hospitals found considerable variation in their practices and in their efforts to collect unpaid bills.
According to a review by the Lown Institute, most hospitals offer charity care but the income thresholds for qualifying for such assistance vary widely from hospital to hospital, from as low as household income of 100 percent of the federal poverty level to as much as 600 percent of the federal poverty level.
Those standards vary, moreover, even in the same community, with neighboring hospitals sometimes having considerable differences in their thresholds for providing some or complete financial assistance to patients.
Residency status can matter, too: some hospitals offer assistance only to residents of their state. Others have different assistance standards for different types of care and some give preference to the uninsured.
Hospitals also differ on how aggressively they pursue unpaid bills – with their tactics sometimes affected by state laws.
Learn more from the Lown Institute’s findings, which include a report, news release, searchable database, and more and from the Healthcare Dive story “Charity care policies can vary wildly between hospitals: report.”