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News :: Health |
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CU-Local Hospital Accountability Victory |
Current rating: -1 |
by Z.A. Abonn
Email: ritri29tn (nospam) aol.com (unverified!) |
18 Feb 2004
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VIA NEWS-G online. URBANA β The Illinois Department of Revenue has ruled that Provena Covenant Medical Center in Urbana is not a tax-exempt charitable organization β a ruling that could force the hospital to pay $1.1 million annually in local property taxes.
Champaign County and Provena officials confirmed the ruling was handed down on Friday. |
VIA NEWS-GZT online. Wed 18 Feb 2004. URBANA β The Illinois Department of Revenue has ruled that Provena Covenant Medical Center in Urbana is not a tax-exempt charitable organization β a ruling that could force the hospital to pay $1.1 million annually in local property taxes.
Champaign County and Provena officials confirmed the ruling was handed down on Friday.
Illinois Department of Revenue officials did not return telephone calls Tuesday.
But Mark S. Wiener, president and chief executive officer of Provena Covenant Medical Center, issued a statement Tuesday decrying the ruling.
"It is very disheartening to think that a Catholic hospital, such as Provena Covenant Medical Center, which provides almost $3 million in charity care, subsidizes Medicare/Medicaid shortfalls by the state to the tune of over $2 million annually, and provides $250,000 annually in unreimbursed services to the community, could be seen as a for-profit entity," he said.
Wiener described hospital officials as "very disappointed" and said Provena would take immediate steps to request a formal hearing to appeal the decision.
"We are, and fully expect to remain, a tax-exempt Catholic hospital," Wiener said. "This finding has local, state and national ramifications. This could alter the ability of health-care providers to offer their services to the communities and persons that need it most."
The case against Provena arose because the owner of a charitable institution must reapply for tax-exempt status when an ownership change takes place. Provena Health, based in Mokena, bought Covenant Medical Center in 1997, but didn't reapply for tax-exempt status until late in 2002.
The Champaign County Board of Review, on Jan. 30, 2003, recommended to the state that it deny tax-exempt status for Provena's Urbana properties, including the main hospital.
In a nine-page brief, the board of review argued that much of the area inside the hospital is used by outside, for-profit entities to generate personal or corporate profit.
The brief also questioned whether Provena Covenant provides charity care to all who need and apply for it, as case law requires. The brief cited the hospital's suing large numbers of patients for nonpayment of bills and its use of two collection agencies.
Both Provena Covenant and Carle Foundation Hospital's aggressive debt-collection practices, which resulted in the temporary jailing of some delinquent patients, were the subject of a lengthy, scathing article in The Wall Street Journal in November.
Board of Review member Stan Jenkins of Champaign said he wasn't surprised by the state decision.
"We recommended denial of tax-exempt status based on the use of the property and the ownership of the property," Jenkins said. "We feel they don't comply with the criteria the state sets out to qualify as tax-exempt or charitable."
Urbana Mayor Tod Satterthwaite said Tuesday he expects Provena Covenant to appeal the decision by the state.
"It's probably too early to count on that money in our budget," Satterthwaite said. "No matter where it goes, it's probably too early to spend it. I don't think we've heard the final decision on this."
As it stands now, the sole beneficiary of the $1.1 million in annual property taxes Provena Covenant might owe would be the city's tax increment financing District 3. The tax district would receive all the hospital's property tax income each year until the district expires in 2013.
City officials have previously indicated that they would probably share some of the Provena money with local taxing bodies, including the Urbana school district, if they ever receive it. |
Copyright by the author. All rights reserved. |
Comments
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Re: CU-Local Hospital Accountability Victory |
by 10
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
19 Feb 2004
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ACCOUNTABILITY MATTERS.
CARLE GETS IT A LITTLE MORE NOW THAN THEY DID A YEAR AGO.
By DEBRA PRESSEY
Β© 2004 THE NEWS-GAZETTE
Published Online February 19, 2004
URBANA β Carle Foundation Hospital will expand its community care program in an effort to provide more free and discounted medical care for the poor and uninsured, hospital officials said today.
The community care program offers financial assistance β both in the form of free care and reduced charges β to patients who qualify based on how their household incomes stack up to federal poverty guidelines.
Carle was subjected to public criticism last year for some of its debt collection practices, and hospital officials said the change is being made out of an increased awareness of how rising health care costs are affecting a growing number of uninsured people.
"I think the whole dialogue across the country really is around these issues of the underinsured and the uninsured, and that got us thinking about what we might do to improve access to the community," said Carle's Chief Financial Officer Robert Tonkinson.
Under the old community care guidelines, free care was given to people at or below the federal poverty level, and charges were discounted on a sliding scale for those with incomes up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level.
Under the expanded community care program guidelines, families will qualify for free care with incomes up to 150 percent of federal poverty guidelines and those with incomes up to 250 percent of those guidelines will qualify for reduced charges on a sliding scale, hospital officials said.
Under the old guidelines, total income for a family of four couldn't exceed $18,400 to receive free hospital care, and now that same family can earn up to $27,600 for the entire bill to be written off. A family of four with a total income of up to $46,000 or less would now qualify for a 25 percent discount on a hospital bill, hospital officials said.
The expanded program also will benefit some previous patients currently paying off their bills who reapply to the community care program. Some will have their accounts written off, and others will become eligible for the discounts, Tonkinson said.
"People can reapply, because we don't know what their current financial situation is," he added.
The hospital expects to give away an additional $388,000 in charity care this year under the expanded program β bumping up the projected total to nearly $1.7 million from last year's $1.3 million, Tonkinson said.
Those figures reflect actual costs to the hospital, rather than what the patients would have been charged. Reflecting charges rather than actual costs would have doubled the numbers, he said.
Carle officials said the community care program helped 1,793 patients last year, and they are encouraging any patients who think they might qualify for help to call the hospital's patient accounts office.
Hospital officials are also continuing to encourage patients to set up payment schedules, and say they want patients to know the hospital doesn't charge interest on existing bills.
Any patients unable to manage a payment of $25 a month are encouraged to apply for community care assistance.
Carle officials said the hospital is further supporting access to health care in the community by donating money to some community health programs, including support for the Community Prenatal Care Program and $30,000 for the school-based clinic at Urbana High School. Last year, the hospital gave $175,000 to Frances Nelson Health Center and gave the center the use of Carle's mobile clinic. |
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Re: News-Gazette Coverage |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
19 Feb 2004
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Well, it's good the N-G is finally paying attention, but once again, it steps to the beat of major advertisers, rather than giving its readers real journalism. If journalists are assumed to have the obligation of public interest, then as a watchdog of that interest, the News-Gazette looks to be something of a sleeping lapdog.
One wonders, if the N-G had paid attention to these serious charges years ago, how much financial suffering patients with limited financial resources could have avoided? Of course, that calls into question the failing U.S. system of health care for profit, based on the greed and whims of employers, a model that doesn't address the needs of some 44 million Americans who lack healthcare.
The Champaign County Health Care Consumers raised the issues the N-G is finally covering for, literally, decades. It took that bastion of capitalist reporting, The Wall Street Journal, recently writing on this issue before we saw the N-G lift anything more than an eyebrow at the ethical behavior of some of its largest advertisers, Carle and Provena. They sure didn't lift a pen to write anything except impassioned defenses of Carle and Provena. Guided by the principles of corporate boosterism, the N-G often fails the great majority of its public. But that's capitalism, right? That's why most of what we are seeing, even now, is an uncritical account of how generous Carle is with its new program. |
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Re: CU-Local Hospital Accountability Victory |
by 44mlnuninsrd
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
23 Feb 2004
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ML is right to be concerned about the Gazzoo's neglect of the medical debt couregeous camapign by the Champaign County Health Care Consumers; I share your concern fully, ML. And yes, without any doubt capitalism's poisoning our efforts as a coomunity and health advocacates to put an end to this most inhumane practice of medical debt. Yet, we need to recognize that the Gazoo and the health care pirates we are fighting have , and will be around much longer than CCHCC and all of its staff and members. And we also need to recognize the the health care pirates will eventually find ways to literally destroy this beautiful organization our community has--that is the Champaign County Health Care Consumers. So, my point is that the community needs to rethink how to protect this beatutiful organization and start planning and prepare to brace for the worst. That is what we need to be working on if we are to protect the very humane character of CCHCC, and the vision of peace, justice, and humanity that characterizes the work of Claudia Lennhoff, CCHCC's exec director. Very few advocacy leaders in the health care field match Claudia's charisma, vision, passion, and dedication--she is really a most precious treasure in this field in and of herself!! |
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