Tightened Charitable Hospital Rules for Better Outcomes

As your constituent I want you to know that nonprofit hospitals only provide about 2.3% of their surplus to the community. Part of the problem is that the IRS 501(c)3 standards for charitable hospitals are weak and need to be tightened up. Many people wind up in debt or bankrupt because charitable funds from hospitals were not made available to patients and debts were sent to collection. 65% of all bankruptcies are medical. You can fix this by ensuring that hospitals evaluate the debt for charitable help before they sell the debt to collectors. Hospitals often abuse the IRS Community Based Standards by using their advertising budget as an educational charitable outreach. That’s creative bookkeeping, not helping those that need it. Hospitals need to align their educational and research activities to community goals and help address the social determinants of health in their neighborhoods. Make them do this and document it. Thank you.