Why Are Nonprofit Hospitals Focused More on Dollars Than Patients?

Why Are Nonprofit Hospitals Focused More on Dollars Than Patients?
By Amol S. Navathe, MD, PhD
New York Times
November 30, 2023
Nonprofit hospitals have been caught doing some surprising things, given how they are supposed to serve the public good in exchange for being exempt from federal, state and local taxes—exemptions that added up to $28 billion in 2020. Detailed media reports show them hounding poor patients for money, cutting nurse staffing too aggressively and giving preferential treatment to the rich over the poor.
[Editor’s Note: The author, a practicing physician, is a senior fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics and a co-director of the Healthcare Transformation Institute at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.]