California Official Calls for Standards on Reporting Hospital Contributions to Society

The California state auditor’s office on Thursday recommended that lawmakers give nonprofit hospitals more specific instructions on how to determine the value of services they provide to the cities and towns they serve, reports the Los Angeles Times.

The auditor’s office said that hospitals take such a broad range of approaches to assessing the value of free care to the poor and other services that it is hard to compare them.

The California report was issued at a time when a growing number of federal and state officials are asking questions about whether nonprofit hospitals deserve their tax-exempt status.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said the California report underscores the reasons he is pushing the Internal Revenue Service to standardize regulations on hospital reporting.

“The California auditor’s report highlights the problem with nonprofit hospitals and their tax-exempt status,” he said. “There aren’t uniform standards for what’s charity care and what isn’t, so everyone’s left to define it for themselves.”

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