Charity Care Issues In An Era Of Expanded Health Care Coverage

The nature of charity care is evolving in an era of expanded health care coverage – with important management and policy implications for all organizations providing health care services. Even in the period before the enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) and its expansion of coverage requirements (elimination of preexisting condition limitations and lifetime coverage limits, behavioral health parity requirements, employer mandates, and Medicaid expansion – to name a few), the pressure on non-profit organizations to more explicitly quantify charity care was growing.

This interest in charity care was driven less from a health policy . . .