Sen. Chuck Grassley: there he goes again. (Check out some of his other recent activities regarding tax-exempt hospitals.) As Finance committee chairman, he’s put out a press release and discussion draft of potential non-profit hospital reforms. The draft tees up the proposal thus:
The staff proposal recommends setting specific standards for hospitals that seek exemption under ยง 501(c)(3), including: (i) establishing a charity care policy and wide publication of that policy; (ii) quantitative standards for charity care; (iii) requirements for joint ventures between nonprofit hospitals and for-profit entities; (iv) board composition and other governance requirements and executive compensation; (v) limiting charges billed to the uninsured; (vi) placing restrictions on conversions; (vii) curtailing unfair billing and collection practices; (viii) transparency and accountability requirements; and, (ix) sanctions for failure to comply with applicable requirements for a 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) hospital.
The draft gets into some detail on each of these proposals. Comments are invited over the next month.
Question to consider: Should tax-exempt payors be subject to the same sort of scrutiny?
Charity care at tax-exempt hospitals: how much is enough? for the IRS? for Sen. Grassley?
The IRS’s interim report on hospitals and community benefits was released last week, one day after the latest missive from Sen. Chuck Grassley. One interesting point of comparison: Grassley would condition hospitals’ tax-exempt status on spending 5% of an