New report: Do nonprofit SF hospitals keep their bargain with taxpayers?

Nonprofit hospitals in California give back millions a year in community benefits, but it's tough to tell where the money goes, concludes a new report by The Greenlining Institute.

Released Tuesday, the report by the Berkeley-based policy and research institute culled information from publicly available data from three San Francisco hospitals: Kaiser Foundation Hospital in San Francisco, Dignity Health's St. Mary's Medical Center and Sutter Health's California Pacific Medical Center. Researchers also interviewed stakeholders involved with the joint hospitals' San Francisco community needs assessment.

Hospitals did not participate in the project, which looks like an opening salvo in another legislative fight over nonprofit hospital charity care next year. Last session's Assembly Bill 503 faced fierce opposition by the hospital industry and died in committee in August.

"Not-for-profit hospitals are supposed to operate for the benefit of the community in exchange for the huge tax break they get, and that includes helping underserved communities stay healthy," Greenlining Institute health policy director Carla Saporta said in a news release. "When we looked at publicly available data, we found there's no way to tell how most community benefit dollars are spent, whom they help or even if all the spending claimed as community benefit is real."

Data reported by the hospital is fragmentary and incomplete, the report shows.

Kaiser's San Francisco hospital claims $24.3 million in community benefit spending, but only provides details on $568,000 given as grants to community groups. Dignity Health's St. Mary's hospital provides more accounting for its $51 million in community benefit, but 43 percent of the total is alleged Medicare shortfall, which the federal government does not allow to be considered community benefit. And Sutter's CPMC claims $167.4 in community benefit contributions but gives no consistent reporting of resources committee to the activities described, the report claims.

Kathy Robertson covers health care, law and lobbying, labor, workplace issues and immigration for the Sacramento Business Journal.