Hospitals in 2019 provided $41.6 billion in uncompensated care, meaning care for which no payment was received from the patient or insurer, according to the latest data from the AHA's Annual Survey of Hospitals.

Uncompensated care is the sum of a hospital's bad debt and the financial assistance it provides. It does not include other unfunded costs of care, such as underpayment from Medicare and Medicaid, or account for other services and programs that hospitals provide to meet identified community needs.

In 2019, Medicare and Medicaid underpaid U.S. hospitals by $75.8 billion, meaning hospitals received only 87 cents for every dollar they spent caring for Medicare patients and only 90 cents for every dollar they spent caring for Medicaid patients. The data precede and do not reflect the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Related News Articles

Blog
All hospitals and health systems, regardless of size, location and type of ownership, are dedicated to caring for their patients and communities in a wide…
Headline
A study published this month in Health Affairs on the charity care provided by tax-exempt hospitals fails to recognize that charity care is only one part of a…
Blog
The mission of all hospitals and health systems, regardless of size and type of ownership, is to care for their communities and patients. In fact, an Ernst and…
Headline
Instead of attacking hospitals and health systems caring for patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, PhRMA should instead focus on lowering the costs of drugs…
Blog
America’s hospitals and health systems, and our heroic caregivers, have been on the front lines of the battle against COVID-19 for the past year, working…
Headline
“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…