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Community Benefit Program
Children’s National Medical Center is committed to improving the health of our community by providing community benefit programming to children and families in our region, across the country, and internationally through our CARE mission. Our community benefit program goes beyond compliance but is rather a testament of our charitable mission and strives “to do well by doing good”.
As the nation’s children’s hospital, the mission of Children’s National Medical Center is to excel in Care, Advocacy, Research and education. We accomplish this through:
- Providing a quality healthcare experience for our patients and families
- Improving health outcomes for children regionally, nationally and internationally
- Leading the creation of innovative health solutions to pediatric health challenges
Financial Highlights
In fiscal year 2010, Children’s National provided more than $113 million in overall community benefit, including $63.7 million in uncompensated care.
Uncompensated care includes:
Charity care:
Our uncompensated care includes charity care provided to children in our immediate region who meet our financial assistance criteria.
- Most children in the United States have insurance of some kind, so pure charity care is typically lower in children’s hospitals, compared to adult hospitals.
- However, even children with insurance can be underinsured. Out-of-pocket expenses such as co-pays and deductibles can add up quickly when a child is severely ill. Our financial assistance program helps families in this situation.
- When a child enters our system without health insurance, we work with the family to determine their eligibility for public health insurance programs such as Medicaid, CHIP, and other financial assistance programs. If they are eligible, we assist them in enrolling.
Bad debt:
Approximately $8 million or 12% of the $63.7 million in uncompensated care for FY2010 is bad debt.
- These are unpaid invoices that we write off because we cannot collect payment, because families move or cannot pay their portion of their hospital or doctor bills.
- With the economic downturn, we anticipate that this number will go up.
Medicaid shortfall
- Children’s National serves patients from Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia, many of whom rely on Medicaid for their health coverage.
- Medicaid is a federal/state program. State governments can and have made cuts to their Medicaid budgets to address state budget shortfalls.
- All three of the jurisdictions that we serve – Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia, have already implemented reductions in Medicaid reimbursement for providers, including children’s hospitals.
- Approximately 55% of our annual inpatient care discharges (FY2010) are children enrolled in Medicaid.
- Approximately 95% of our primary care patients are Medicaid beneficiaries.
- More than half of the $63.7 million in uncompensated care for FY 2010 is Medicaid shortfall, the difference between cost and payment from Medicaid.
- With the economic downturn, we have seen this number go up, and anticipate that this number will continue to go up.
- As the economy has fallen, more families have turned to Medicaid for health coverage. This is putting additional pressure on already tight state budgets.
Other categories of Community Benefit include:
Community Health Improvement Services: $22,212,390
This includes activities carried out to improve community health that are usually subsidized by Children’s National.
Health Professions Education: $8,978,339
The difference between cost and reimbursements incurred in providing education in clinical settings, internships, and programs for physicians, nurses, and health professionals is considered a community benefit.
Subsidized Health Services: $8,363,682
Clinical services that are provided despite a financial loss are categorized as subsidized health services. The service is provided because it meets an identified community need and if not offered it would not be available in the area or fall to the responsibility of the government or another not-for-profit organization to provide.
Research: $9,976,972
Clinical and community health research, as well as studies on healthcare delivery that are shared with others outside the organization fall into this category. Issues related to reducing health disparities and preventable illness are a priority.
Financial and in-kind Contributions: $44,405
Financial contributions include funds and in-kind services donated to individuals and/or the community at large.
Community Building Activities: $224,763
Programs that are not directly related to health care but provide the opportunities to express the root causes of health problems.
Community benefit operations: $294,380
Costs associated with dedicated staff, community health needs and/or asset assessments, and other costs associated with community benefit strategy and operations fall into this category.
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