Sr. Carol Keehan Emphasizes Catholic Health Ministry's Longstanding Commitment to Community Benefits in Testimony Before U.S. Senate Finance Committee

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Sr. Carol Keehan, DC, president and chief executive officer of the Catholic Health Association of the United States (CHA), delivered testimony on the Catholic health ministry's commitment to community benefit activities during a Senate Finance Committee hearing. Sr. Carol also emphasized the ministry's leadership in standardizing the reporting of community benefit programs and activities.

For more than a year, the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Sen. Charles Grassley, has been analyzing whether not-for-profit organizations are justifying their tax-exempt status. During her testimony, Sr. Carol stressed the Catholic health ministry's commitment to providing free and discounted care to low-income uninsured individuals, improving access to health care services for all, and making communities healthier places to live, work and raise families.

"It is important for the committee to know, however, that we do not provide community benefits in order to prove we deserve tax exemption, we do so because of who we are," she told the Committee.

Over the past two decades, CHA has been at the forefront of developing guidelines for reporting hospital community benefits. In May, CHA released a new set of guidelines for planning, measuring, and documenting community benefits. Last week, CHA announced that 95 percent of its member health systems and 90 percent of the member hospitals have already formally adopted the new guidelines, and additional commitments are being received daily as various governance boards meet.

In a memorandum to reporters and editors on September 12, Sen. Grassley said: "The Catholic Health Association (CHA) recently established common rules and guidance for reporting and measuring key parts of community benefit for its member hospitals. I appreciate this effort and am pleased that hundreds of hospitals already have agreed to comply with CHA guidelines."

In addition, Sen. Grassley wrote: "The IRS is creating a supplemental report to the Form 990 to include additional information from non-profit hospitals and their charity care and community benefit. I hope the IRS will give strong consideration to having that new information requirement conform with CHA guidelines."

Sr. Carol had presented Sen. Grassley with the new guidelines and the near-universal adoption rate during a private meeting on September 7. Following the meeting, Sen. Grassley remarked, "I'm very appreciative of Sr. Carol and all her colleagues at the Catholic Health Association for their dedication and commitment in working with me to establish best practices for nonprofit hospitals. The new voluntary guidelines for community benefits for nonprofit hospitals developed by the Catholic Health Association are a good step forward and will bring real benefits to many in need."

A Guide for Planning and Reporting Community Benefit updates CHA's 1989 document that provided the first-ever guidelines for assessing community needs, creating programs to meet those needs, and publicly reporting the outreach services delivered. To develop the revised guidelines, CHA worked closely with the hospital alliance VHA Inc., as well as with the Healthcare Financial Management Association.