Tax Exempt Hospital Extends Services to Poor People

When the headline is that an exempt hospital has decided to serve poor people our Spidey senses oughta really start going off.  Something ain’t right.  That is, in fact, the headline of this NY Times article concerning Allina Health’s policy of ghosting patients unable to pay their bill.  Allina’s last name is “.org” not “.com” by the way.  We blogged about it with great and righteous indignation a few months back.  Comes now word that the exempt hospital has decided to care for poor people after all.  No longer shall charitable hospitals in Minnesota and other parts upper Midwest be alms houses for the rich and well insured.  I’m not making this up:

Allina Health, a large nonprofit health system based in Minnesota, announced Wednesday that it would end its policy of denying medical care to patients with $4,500 or more in outstanding bills.  Although Allina’s hospitals treated anyone in emergency rooms, other services were cut off for indebted patients, including children and those with chronic illnesses like diabetes and depression, The New York Times reported in June. Patients weren’t allowed back until they had paid off their debt entirely. Allina issued its policy change less than a week after Keith Ellison, the attorney general of Minnesota, announced that his office was investigating Allina’s practice of withholding care from patients with debt. The investigation is part of a broader look at how the state’s hospitals, which are all nonprofit, bill patients for medical care.

It’s pretty much a PR move, though, because the law allows tax exemption if a hospital maintains an emergency room open to all comers, and in some cases  it need not even do that much.  Something just ain’t right. There should be orange lightening bolts emanating from our heads right now.

darryll k. jones