In states where both for-profit and nonprofit hospitals operate, for-profit hospitals had higher unreimbursed Medicaid cost-to-expense ratios than nonprofit hospitals, despite nonprofits receiving tax exemptions for yielding community benefits like providing uncompensated care, according to research published in JAMA Network Open, Healthcare Dive reports.
Texas had the highest ratio of for-profit to nonprofit unreimbursed Medicaid costs to expenses, while New York and the District of Columbia had the lowest ratios, the study found.
Researchers also looked at unreimbursed Medicaid costs among nonprofit and for-profit hospitals in states that did and did not expand Medicaid and found the 28 states that expanded Medicaid by Jan. 1, 2019, had a median for-profit to nonprofit relative ratio similar to the 17 states that did not expand it. Read more.
