A review of nonprofit hospitals in New York found that the vast majority exhibit actions that appear to value profits over patient care, including noncompliance with federal regulations to post prices online, Public News Service reports.

According to the Fourth Semi-Annual Hospital Price Transparency Report (90 pages, PDF), a review of 2,000 hospitals nationwide conducted by PatientRightsAdvocate.org, only six of 101 New York hospitals complied with federal regulations requiring all hospitals to post prices online and make them easily accessible. Such factors can cause patients to delay receiving care, according to Donna Christensen, a board member of Consumers for Quality Care. “Hospitals need to adhere to the requirements, by law, that the IRS has placed on them for their tax benefits to provide that care,” she said. “And to make sure that they are able to show where they have spent some of their savings on providing charity care.”

According to Public News Service, the Lown Institute Hospitals Index found that hospitals in New York have a “fair share deficit” of more than $1.6 billion, by receiving more in tax breaks than they spend on community benefits and charity care for low-income patients.

Christensen also noted that predatory medical debt collections need to be regulated, as according to the Community Service Society’s Discharged in Debt report, 112 nonprofit hospitals sued more than 53,000 patients across the state, between 2015 and 2020. “Some of them would spend some of that money on creating new entities or services that provide more income,” she said, “or increasing the salaries of their executives and not fulfilling their obligations to the lower income and more needy people in their community.”

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