What Counts as Community Benefit

What Counts Email Hotline

Community benefits are programs or activities that provide treatment and/or promote health and healing as a response to identified community needs. They are not provided for marketing purposes.

Community Benefit Includes:

• Charity care
• Government-sponsored indigent health care — unpaid costs of public programs 
  • Medicaid
  • State Children's Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP)
  • Medically indigent programs
• Community Benefit Services

Go to the What Counts Q&A page to access resources that can help you determine what services or activities count as community benefit.

Principles for Determining What Services are Community Benefit

Count as quantifiable community benefit if the program addresses an identified community need and meets at least one of the following criteria:

• Improves access to health care services.
• Enhances health of the community.
• Advances medical or health knowledge.
• Relieves or reduce the burden of government or other community efforts.

Charity care does not include bad debt, contractual allowance or quick pay discounts.

Do not count as quantifiable community benefit if the program is:

• Provided for marketing purposes
• For employees only
• Required of all health care providers by rules or standards
• Questionable as to whether it should be reported

The value of time provided by volunteers or employees on their own time should not be counted as a community benefit expense.

What Counts Email Hotline

Do you have a question about whether a program should count as community benefit? Submit your question to the What Counts Email Hotline.

Before submitting your question, check our What Counts Q&A to see if it has already been addressed.

Please Take Note: The information provided above does not constitute legal or tax advice. The material is provided for informational/educational purposes only. Please consult with counsel regarding your organization's particular circumstances.