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Responding to the Lown Institute’s latest report on hospital community benefits, AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack notes that financial assistance is only one part of a hospital’s total community benefit and does not account for many programs and services that hospitals provide to meet the specific needs of their community, from housing to healthy foods, health screenings, transportation and uncompensated care.  

“America’s hospitals and health systems do more than any other part of the health care field to support vulnerable patients and communities: Our doors are always open, regardless of a patient’s ability to pay,” Pollack writes. “In total, hospitals of all types have provided nearly $745 billion in uncompensated care to patients since 2000.”