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Out of about 5,000 community hospitals in the United States, almost 3,000 are nonprofit. More than a thousand are investor-owned, also called for-profit. The balance are owned by state or local governments.

Nonprofit hospitals, like all nonprofit organizations, must have a charitable mission and for hospitals that mission is generally expressed as providing charity care and various benefits to the community.

In exchange, nonprofit hospitals are exempt from various taxes, they can receive tax-deductible charitable donations and they may have access to tax-exempt bonds.

There's a longstanding debate regarding whether nonprofit hospitals deserve the benefits they receive and whether nonprofit hospitals really behave all that differently from investor-owned hospitals.

Jill Horwitz from the UCLA School of Law joins A Health Podyssey to discuss the similarities and differences in hospital behavior based upon ownership.

Horwitz and Austin Nichols published a paper in the March issue of Health Affairs exploring the relationship between urban hospitals ownership type and which service lines they offer. They found that for-profits, nonprofits, and government-owned hospitals are all more likely to offer a service if its profitable but for-profit hospitals are overall more responsive to service profitability than nonprofits.

If you enjoy this interview, order the March 2022 Health Affairs issue to get research on hospitals, health equity, care delivery and more.

Listen to Health Affairs Pathways.

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