AHA: Article does not tell full story about hospitals’ community investments

“The recent Modern Healthcare article ‘Top not-for-profit hospitals offer less charity care, study finds,’ does not tell the full story of how hospitals and health systems improve community health,” writes AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack in a letter to the editor published Saturday. “It also fails to mention the resources dedicated to caring for patients who do not have the ability to pay. The American Hospital Association’s latest publicly available report shows hospitals and health systems spent $41.3 billion on uncompensated care in 2018. Moreover, hospital and health systems’ commitment goes far beyond the four walls. According to a 2019 analysis, tax-exempt hospitals provided $95 billion in total benefits to their communities in 2016 alone — outweighing the $9 billion value of their tax exemption by a factor of nearly 11 to