AMA Draws Blood With Policy on Hospital Tax Exemptions

There are certain lines you don’t cross, even when you point the finger at another healthcare industry sector for high costs, limited access and poor quality. There is an unspoken agreement — among sectors, trade associations and lobbyists — that you’ll only shove the knife in so far lest they come after you with an even bigger knife.

The American Medical Association (AMA) may have violated the gentleman’s agreement that’s kept the status quo and incumbent healthcare organizations in power for so long.

Earlier this month, the AMA’s House of Delegates, which is the association’s policy-making body, called for greater regulatory oversight of not-for-profit hospitals and health systems to ensure they’re meeting their community benefit obligations to justify their tax-exempt status. The AMA drew blood from not-for-profit hospitals and health systems from the comfort of the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort in Orlando, where the AMA House of Delegates held their interim annual meeting Nov. 8-12.

In addition to supporting more oversight of how not-for-profit hospitals and health systems spend their tax-exempt money, the AMA moved to support the standardization of hospital charity care and financial assistance policies.

“Failing to standardize the financial assistance process across all nonprofit hospitals makes the benefit inaccessible to many eligible people. A patient may qualify for aid at one hospital, but not at a hospital across town,” said AMA President Bruce Scott, M.D., in a press release on this new plank in the AMA’s policy agenda. “Often the application process is not clear and requires patients to complete onerous paperwork requests, discouraging patients from completing financial aid applications. In some cases, patients are not screened for eligibility to ensure financial assistance reaches those in need.”

The AMA said it will push for more government enforcement of federal and state community benefit standards and requirements, including the ability of enforcement agencies to enact penalties against or revoke the tax-exempt status of hospitals and health systems that fail to comply with those standards and requirements.

Now, I’m not saying that the AMA is wrong. Years ago, I was the first reporter to write about how little charity care not-for-profit hospitals provide to the poor. The news is that the AMA said it. Not only did it say it, but the association issued a press release about it.

What’s next? The American Hospital Association saying doctors make too much money? Or worse yet, the American Nurses Association calling doctors incompetent, egotistical cry babies who can’t care for patients without the help of nurses?

This post is the latest installment of my healthcare blame game series. The series is based on my theory that sectors of the healthcare industry take turns blaming each other for high costs, limited access and poor quality while tacitly agreeing amongst themselves not to really do anything about it.

Read more installments in the series:

• “It’s Big Pharma’s Turn to Point the Finger”
• “It’s Not Me, It’s You”
• “Health Insurance and Drug Company Execs Must Be Chuckling Over Antitrust Enforcement of Providers”
• “No, It’s Your Turn to Throw Me Under the Healthcare Bus”
• “Playing the Information Blocking Blame Game”