Hospitals in the U.S. provided $38.3 billion in uncompensated care in 2016, up from $35.7 billion in 2015, according to latest data the American Hospital Association’s Annual Survey of Hospitals. Uncompensated care is care for which no payment was received from the patient or insurer. It is the sum of a hospital’s bad debt and financial assistance costs, but does not include other unfunded costs of care, such as underpayment from Medicare and Medicaid. It also does not account for other services and programs that hospitals provide to meet identified community needs.
The AHA report can be obtained at http://www.aha.org/content/17/2017-uncompensated-care-factsheet.pdf