Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray has promised to hold the for-profit health system that’s buying Forum Health accountable to its charity-care commitments in the Youngstown area.
Nonprofit hospitals are required to provide a certain level of charity care — free health services to lower-income and uninsured people — in return for their federal tax-exempt status. The state has the power to take legal action to enforce Forum Health’s commitments, and would do so if necessary, Cordray said, according to a report in the Youngstown Vindicator.
This requirement has generated controversy in recent years as government and hospital officials wrestled with how much charity care nonprofit hospitals should provide — as well as exactly what sorts of activities should be defined as charity care. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has been particularly dogged in his examination of the issue, likely earning him plenty of enemies in the hospital industry, considering free care takes a bite out of hospitals’ revenues.
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Cordray’s office is in the midst of a review of nonprofit Forum’s sale to Community Health Systems Inc., a Franklin, Tennessee, a for-profit company that owns, operates or leases 123 hospitals across the country. Cordray expects to complete the review sometime next month.
State law requires the AG’s office to review sales of nonprofits, though it’s unclear what effect, if any, a negative recommendation from Cordray would have on the proposed $120 million sale. The sale also required approval from a U.S. bankruptcy court — which granted that approval — because Forum filed for bankruptcy protection last year.
The proposed sale also has generated a bit of controversy, drawing objection from the Ohio Nurses Association. The nurses’ union objected to the sale because it violates work agreements between the union and the health system, the Vindicator reported.
