IRS Releases Long-Awaited Report on Hospital Pay and Services

“No correlation was found between community benefit expenditure levels and per capita income levels of the hospital’s surrounding area,” the IRS said. “However, community benefit expenditure levels generally increased as uninsured rates of the hospital’s surrounding area increased.”

The IRS said the data on community benefits has limitations. “For example, although the IRS designated the general categories of activities that could be reported as community benefit for purposes of the study, determining what was treated as community benefit (for example, bad debt or Medicare shortfalls) and how to measure it (cost versus charges) was largely within the [hospitals’] discretion,” the tax agency said.