Community Benefits: Hospitals play a vital role in their communities
(click on graphic to download PDF)

Minnesota hospitals continue to do much more than care for the sick and injured among us.

Across the state, hospitals' community contributions in 2008 totaled more than $3.2 billion. The category of uncompensated care alone reached $476 million. Such uncompensated care included $165 million in charity care and another $310 million worth of care that hospitals had to "write off" for patients who couldn't pay. Without such programs and initiatives, our state's ability to keep the disadvantaged from falling through the cracks would be greatly diminished.

For the fourth consecutive year, the 2009 Minnesota Hospital Association Community Benefit Report quantifies the contributions that hospitals make to their communities each and every day: [PDF]. This report also assigns a monetary value to other types of services or funding arrangements that ultimately benefit the larger community, such as health outreach programs and specific services, education and training of medical professionals and medical research.

Any way you look at it, the facts show that Minnesota hospitals play a vital role in the communities they serve each and every day.

For more information
Questions about community benefits may be directed to either Matt Anderson, Jonathan Peters or Jan Hennings at MHA, (651) 641-1121 or (800) 462-5393.

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See past reports
2008: PDF
2007: PDF
2006: PDF