Category: Kaiser Family Foundation

The Estimated Value of Tax Exemption for Nonprofit Hospitals Was About $28 Billion in 2020

This data note estimates that the value of tax exemption for nonprofit hospitals was $28 billion in 2020. This amount exceeds estimated charity care costs among nonprofit hospitals in 2020 ($16 billion), though charity care represents only a portion of…

Nonprofit Hospitals’ Tax-Exempt Status Worth About $28 Billion, New KFF Analysis Finds

Editor’s Note: The press release was updated on March 27, 2023, to reflect corrections in the underlying analysis, resulting in a modest increase in the total estimated value of tax exemption, from $27.6 from $28.1 billion. The tax-exempt status …

Nonprofit Hospitals’ Tax-Exempt Status Worth About $28 Billion, New KFF Analysis Finds

Editor’s Note: The press release was updated on March 27, 2023, to reflect corrections in the underlying analysis, resulting in a modest increase in the total estimated value of tax exemption, from $27.6 from $28.1 billion. The tax-exempt status …

KFF’s Kaiser Health News and CBS News Team Up to Investigate a Dental Device That Allegedly Has Left a Trail of Mangled Mouths and Devastated Patients

In a months-long project, KFF’s Kaiser Health News correspondent Brett Kelman joined forces with CBS News National Consumer Investigative Correspondent Anna Werner to investigate an unregulated dental device that is at the heart of numerous accounts of…

Outpatient Visits Are Growing More Complex: Implications for Health Costs

This analysis for the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker uses claims data from private, large employer-based plan to examine trends in complexity coding across outpatient practice settings from 2004 to 2021. It finds a trend toward higher complexity co…

Rural Hospitals Have Fared Worse Financially in States that Haven’t Expanded Medicaid Coverage

Rural hospitals fared worse financially in states that have not expanded their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act than in states that expanded Medicaid, a new KFF analysis finds. Nearly one third of all rural hospitals nationally are in th…

Rural Hospitals Face Renewed Financial Challenges, Especially in States That Have Not Expanded Medicaid

This data note examines rural hospitals’ operating margins in recent years. After seeing higher margins early in the pandemic, likely due to government relief funds, rural hospitals now face renewed challenges, especially in states that have not expand…

The Commercialization of Covid Vaccines Is Coming. Here’s What It Means.

In this commentary for Barron’s, KFF’s Cynthia Cox and Jennifer Kates explore what will happen with costs to COVID-19 vaccines for people with and without insurance once the relevant public health emergency ends on May 11.

Analysis: Inconsistencies Within Hospital Price Transparency Data Make Cost Comparisons Difficult

Since 2021, federal law has required hospitals to publicly post information about their standard prices and negotiated discount rates for common health services to encourage consumers to compare prices and to promote competition. To date, however, the …

Ongoing Challenges with Hospital Price Transparency

This analysis examines transparency data currently shared by hospitals to comply with federal law and finds that they are messy, inconsistent and confusing, making it challenging if not impossible for patients or researchers to use them to compare pric…