Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, ranking member of the Committee on Finance, has asked the Government Accountability Office to study how not-for-profit hospitals meet the requirement to provide community benefits in exchange for tax-exempt status.
Grassley asked the GAO to identify state standards and hospital guidelines for community benefit; hospital policies for defining--and practices for reporting--uncompensated care, charity care, and bad debt; and levels of executive and board compensation and relationships with for-profit business ventures.
“We need to get a better handle on how nonprofit hospitals are fulfilling their requirement to serve the community in exchange for the generous tax breaks they receive," Grassley wrote to the GAO. “We need to make sure tax-exempt hospitals are providing health care to those in need in keeping with their requirement to serve the public.”
