Community hospitals delivered $39.3 billion in uncompensated care in 2010, an increase from the previous year, according to the American Hospital Association.
The $39.3 billion is a $200 million increase, a rise of a little more than 0.5% compared with 2009, according to the AHA's Annual Survey of Hospitals released on Thursday. The $39.3 billion represents 5.8% of the $678 billion spent in 2010 by the 4,985 community hospital members of the Chicago-based AHA. That breaks down to about $7.9 million per hospital in 2010, up from $7.8 million per hospital in 2009 when 5,008 hospitals were surveyed. In 2009, uncompensated care represented 6% of the $656.2 billion spent that year.
Uncompensated care is the dollar amount of charity care for the medically indigent and uninsured combined with the amount of hospitals' bad debt—the payment of services they have not or do not expect to receive.
