Not for Profit Health Organizations - Essay Example

"Not for Profit Health Organizations" is a great example of a paper on the health system.
1. The Children’s Medical Center was established in the year 1913 and is solely dedicated to providing comprehensive healthcare to children. Its mission is ‘to make life better for children’. Admittedly, in the United States, until the 20th century, hospital systems in important cities were either municipal or private secular hospitals and were affiliated with medical schools. Thus, they were charitable in nature. It was started by a group of nurses who organized an open-air clinic on the lawn of the Parkland Hospital in Dallas. Later on, it grew to include Bradford Hospital for Babies, Children’s Hospital, and Richmond Freeman Memorial Clinic (Texas State Historical Association).

In fact, Bradford and Freeman had a working relationship even before the merger. The doctors in the area used to volunteer at both places. While babies had to go to Bradford for the purpose of hospitalization, the older children were forced to depend on adult hospitals. So, it was found that a children’s hospital that caters to the needs of children from 2 to 15 was necessary. Thus, the idea of the Children’s Hospital of Texas took birth. However, as there was a stock market crash in the year 1929, the fundraising efforts faced a setback, and the hospital was stopped for nearly ten years. However, the idea was revived in the year 1937, and the hospital functioned again.

Admittedly, America was facing a growing number of epidemics at the beginning of the 19th century. This led to the development of such establishments as voluntary hospitals in order to isolate the affected people. To illustrate, the Richmond Freeman Memorial Clinic was a free clinic for children as a result of the need to have one for children, and it received support from First Presbyterian Church. Similarly, the Ivor O’Connor Morgan Hospital for Tuberculosis Children was the result of a fund that was intended to spend on a TB hospital. Thus, it becomes evident that the establishment of the Children’s Medical Center was the result of independent steps.
2. The Hill-Burton Act of 1946 urged hospital modernization and decided to ensure government grants to non-profit hospitals. In return, the hospitals had to ensure charity care or discounted care to the poor. In addition, there was the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act of 1986 that ensures that all hospitals with Medicare and Medicaid programs provide a minimum of care to all patients irrespective of their financial ability. Another important legislation appeared in 1969 when the Internal Revenue Service eliminated the clause that required non-profit hospitals to provide free or low-cost care. According to Steinberg (2007), even now, there is no clarity in the definition given to the term ‘charity’ under the legislation.

Finally, in more recent times, many states have introduced such regulations that ensure minimum charity by hospitals. In Texas, hospitals are required to spend at least four percent of their income on charity care. Referring to Anderson & Gevas (2006), another one is the tax exemption allowed to non-profit organizations. Some possible rules and regulations that are likely to appear are tax exemption based on the amount of charity care provided, conditional tax exemption, and revocation of hospital tax exemptions.
3. A regulation from which this type of health care organization is exempt is the property tax. Under federal law, the for-profit health organizations are supposed to pay property tax, while the non-profit ones are exempt from the same. As Kinney (2010) points out, both the for-profit and the non-profit organizations in the United States presently function in a very similar fashion, there has been criticism on the legal rights of the not-for-profit hospitals and healthcare systems to receive the tax exemption.