Uncompensated Care For Uninsured Patients Cost Hospitals $900 Per Person Annually

Uncompensated care for uninsured patients costs hospitals about $900 per person, per year. In 2012, hospitals provided more than $46 billion in uncompensated care. A key driver of uncompensated care is the Medicare Emergency Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), which requires all Medicare participating hospital emergency departments to treat patients regardless of their ability to pay.

These findings were reported in “Hospitals as Insurers of Last Resort” by Craig Garthwaite, Tal Gross, Matthew J. Notowidigdo. The report is a Working Paper issued by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). The researchers analyzed hospital-level financial data for 1987 . . .