CHA has recently released an updated edition of A Guide for Planning & Reporting Community Benefit.
Considered the essential source for Catholic and other not-for-profit health care organizations that are working to respond to the unique needs of their communities, the 340-page guide includes an easier-to-navigate layout and updates on definitions and community benefit categories.
"Community benefit is an extension of our mission," says Nancy Zuech Lim, CHA's director of community health improvement. The guide is a go-to resource for ministry organizations and governmental leaders to ensure that not-for-profit health care providers measure and report community benefit in a consistent way.
CHA has been the leader in nonprofit hospital community benefit for more than 35 years. In 1989, CHA published the Social Accountability Budget: A Process for Planning and Reporting Community Service in a Time of Fiscal Constraint and has built on that to offer guidance to the field of community benefit. Over time, this guide has had several editions and the name transitioned to its current title in the early 2000s.
The community benefit categories and definitions developed by CHA and included in the newest edition informed the IRS's creation of Form 990 Schedule H, which is submitted by nonprofit hospitals to report their expenses related to community benefit as required for their tax-exempt status. CHA's guidance and the IRS Form 990 Schedule H instructions continue to align today.
The guide includes recommendations on assessing community health needs, developing action plans and programs to address needs, monitoring and reporting outcomes, and telling the community benefit story. The last update was in 2022.
"The guides have evolved over time, and at the core they've always been about our mission of being a part of the community, looking around and seeing what was needed, and then answering the need," Lim says. "That's part of how we formed as Catholic health care."
She points out that the guide not only outlines federal policies that need to be fulfilled but also lays out a call to serve the community and to pursue and attain health equity, so all may flourish. Community benefit flows from Catholic social teaching and the core values of human dignity, the common good and a special concern for those who experience poverty and marginalization.
"We do this work, not because it's required, but because it's the right thing to do, it's central to our mission as not-for-profit health care, and it's what we have always done," she says.
The 2025 edition updates include:
- Community health improvement services category definition and examples to align with the 2023 changes to the instructions for Form 990 Schedule H.
- Enhanced guidance on accounting for indirect costs.
- Updates within Category B: Health Professions Education to include graduate and undergraduate medical education and continuing health professions education as separate categories.
The pages that divide chapters include one graphic flourish: a line drawing that represents a healthy EKG reading that then evolves into an outline of buildings and trees, which represent rural, suburban and urban communities. "Individual health is influenced by social factors and the health of the community," Lim says. "So much about how well and how long we live is based in the systems and policies of our communities."
The 2025 edition is available to members and nonmembers. To learn more and access the guide, visit chausa.org/guide.