Charity care in Emory Healthcare
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Charity care in Emory Healthcare Overview |
As our community needs more, Emory Healthcare gives more. In fiscal year 2011-2012, Emory Healthcare provided $72,064,353 million in charity care, an increase of 4.9% over the previous year, which was itself an 8% increase over the previous year.
Charity care is defined precisely by the Internal Revenue Service and other agencies as unreimbursed expenses incurred during care for individual patients. Charity care thus defined falls into two categories: (1) indigent care, i.e., that provided to patients with no health insurance, not even Medicare or Medicaid, and (2) catastrophic care, that provided to patients whose medical bills are so large relative to their financial situation that paying them would be permanently life-shattering.
This amount does not include millions of additional dollars of uncompensated care provided by Emory physicians working in affiliated hospitals such as Grady Hospital or in free or sliding scale clinics in the community.
In addition to charity care, Emory Healthcare provides numerous other services whose goal is to improve access to care, advance medical knowledge, and relieve or reduce dependence on other community efforts. In fiscal year 2011-2012, this total for Emory Healthcare was $137,576,046. Following are examples of what this total includes:
- $8,633,777 for activities such as the following: Discounted/free prescription drug program; drugs for needy/transplant patients; Concord-Indigent Patient Program; contracted services for indigent patient access; unreimbursed transportation/ambulance services; education of nursing students completing clinical rotations in inpatient/outpatient settings; subsidized continuing care, nursing home care, and home care; and initiatives across the board in all Emory Healthcare facilities, including in-kind donations to organizations such as MedShare (see Serving locally and globally); flu shots; blood drives; American Heart Association fund-raising walk; and educational programs for the public, future health professionals, and patients
- $107,882,205 shortfall between Emory Healthcare’s cost to provide care to Medicaid patients and reimbursement from Medicaid
- $21,060,064 costs to Emory Healthcare for the Georgia provider tax
Charity care totals Fiscal year 2011–2012■ Emory University Hospital/ ■ Emory University Hospital Midtown.................................................19,392,174 ■ Emory Johns Creek Hospital............................................................1,459,200 ■ Saint Joseph's Hospital*................................................................ 5,253,131 ■ The Emory Clinic, Emory Children’s Center, ■ Wesley Woods Center.......................................................................669,368 Total.......................................................................................$72,064,353 The $72.1 million total above represents the unreimbursed cost of providing charity care, based on actual expenses to Emory Healthcare. Cost reporting is standard for calculating charity care totals, as required by the Internal Revenue Service and advocated by the Healthcare Financial Management Association and the Catholic Health Association. *See footnote in chart in Economic Impact section. †Emory Specialty Associates is an outreach physician practice organization within Emory Healthcare. |
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