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An International Meeting of American Accounting
Association
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Growing Demand for Public Hospitals and Determinants of Their Efficiency Factors |
Saleha B. Khumawala
University of Houston
Rabih Y Zeidan
University of Houston
Abstract: The erosion of health insurance coverage is causing increased demand for indigent and charitable health care. This paper analyzes the performance of government hospitals in mid of this increasing pressure on state governments and cities to meet a big portion of this growing demand. The study attempts to assess whether these hospitals, as compared to not-for-profit hospitals (NFP), are ready and suited to meet such challenges amid increasing need for charity care. We find that government hospitals, classified by governance as city, county and health district hospitals have varying performances skewed in favor of health districts. As documented by prior literature, results of this study indicate that district and other government hospitals tend to be less profitable than NFP hospitals. The main contribution of this study is documenting similar treatment and classification of charity care albeit differences in tax-exemption incentives between health district and NFP hospitals.