Sixty-six U.S. hospitals received the highest marks for being socially responsible in an index from the Lown Institute that factors metrics such as patient outcomes, value of care and health equity, the nonpartisan think tank said Tuesday. The top-ranked providers, earning an A, were selected from more than 3,600 institutions.
“We believe communities should have high expectations, and the most socially responsible institutions should be lifted up as models for the system,” Lown Institute President Vikas Saini said.
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Boston Medical Center was named the fourth-most socially responsible hospital in the United States, according to a new study, and was also named the hospital with the most burden from Covid-19 in Boston.
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Sixty-six U.S. hospitals earned the distinction of “most socially responsible” by the Lown Institute. To achieve this designation, hospitals earned “A” grades across measures of health equity, value, and outcomes.
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In 2019, the Cleveland Clinic along with other Northeast Ohio hospitals, received more in tax breaks than they spent on charity care or community investments, according to a recent report by the Lown Institute, a think tank that studies hospital systems.
That year, the Cleveland Clinic had the fourth largest tax-break-to-community-benefit-spending deficit in the country, according to the report. It received $611 million more in tax breaks than it spent on charity care and community investment.
“There's a lot of good that comes out of the hospitals,” Saini said. “But this is very much about trying to understand … what can we see that is directly beneficial to the community?"
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Join us June 28 for the launch of the full 2022 Lown Institute Hospitals Index to find out which hospitals achieved the highest rankings on social responsibility during the first year of Covid-19.
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A recent study finds that many months after hospitals were required to post their prices, only 6% of hospitals are adhering to all of the requirements.
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The nation’s hospitals performed more than 100,000 unnecessary and potentially harmful procedures on older patients between March and December 2020, according to a new analysis by the Lown Institute.
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How can we ensure that nonprofit hospitals are paying their fair share? What policy avenues or partnerships have worked in the past?
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An investigation into the FDA's "breakthrough" device designation shows that devices are being approved based on little evidence, with high potential for profit to device-makers.
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Two-thirds of hospitals in the U.S. are classified as non-profits, yet there is a huge disconnect between the billions of dollars of tax exemptions that many of these institutions receive and how much of those savings goes back into community investment and charity care, as a recent study from the Lown Institute found.
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How often did hospitals perform low-value services in the first year of COVID? Register now for our Hospital Overuse in COVID roundtable discussion May 17 to find out.
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"There's sort of this conspiracy of silence in which everything goes along pell-mell, merrily business as usual," said Dr. Vikas Saini, president of the Lown Institute, which publishes research on unnecessary procedures. "Hospitals have no incentive to say, 'are you sure everything we're doing is needed?' Hospitals are in the business of collecting revenue, and so it's not that they're deliberately engaging in ripping off communities, it's that they have no incentive to try to be better, and they have plenty of disincentives."
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Hospitals taken in billions more than they spend on communities. How could we change the nonprofit hospital community benefit standard to improve accountability?
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Are nonprofit hospital earning their tax breaks? Watch the video from our recent fair share spending launch to learn more.
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Health systems across the U.S. made Lown Institute's new rankings lists for organizations where charity care and community investment spending was less or more than the value of their tax exemption.
The rankings, released April 12 by the nonpartisan healthcare think tank, examine meaningful community benefit spending for nonprofit hospital systems nationwide.
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The Lown Hospitals Index 2022 Community Benefit ranking found the Clinic had the fourth-highest fair share deficit among U.S. nonprofit hospitals at $611 million. The fair share deficit is the difference between the estimated amount a hospital system receives in tax breaks versus the amount it directly invests into its community.
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Some of the largest not-for-profit U.S. hospital systems get a bigger benefit from their tax breaks than they pay out in charity care for the poor, implying that society isn’t benefiting much from their tax-free status, according to a new report.
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“It’s important for all of us to start understanding exactly how tax exemptions are working and what we’re actually getting for it,” says Dr. Vikas Saini, president of the Lown Institute. “The dollars we’re not seeing in taxes are dollars that could be spent on education, firefighters, police and safety, nutrition programs—you name it.”
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Nonprofit hospital systems are expected to give back to their communities in amounts that justify their massive tax breaks. But a new report from the Lown Institute shows this is rarely the case.
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“It’s an important issue because our nonprofit hospitals really are participants in a social compact,” said Dr. Vikas Saini, president and CEO of the Lown Institute, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit. “This is now a big business, there are many many dollars flowing through. It behooves us to understand what the tax exemption is doing, what it’s for and whether it’s still a fair dispensation.”
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