New federal regulations require LGH to consult concerning community health care need

At their recent annual meeting, Lancaster General Health took the unprecedented step of eliminating an opportunity for comment while the audience was present.  The good news appears to be that new federal governmental regulations for tax exempt public charities will require discussions with representatives of  the community at large and the submission of an annual public summary and response.  The bad news is that LGH may be able to ignore the regulation by paying a $50,000 fine.

From the Internal Revenue Service:

…This notice addresses the community health needs assessment (“CHNA”) requirements described in section 501(r)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (“Code”) and related excise tax and reporting obligations, applicable to hospital organizations that are (or seek to be) recognized as described in section 501(c)(3) of the Code. The CHNA requirements are among several new requirements that apply to section 501(c)(3) hospital organizations under section 501(r), which was added to the Code by section 9007(a) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Affordable Care Act”), Pub. L. No. 111-148, 124 Stat. 119, enacted March 23, 2010.1 This notice describes specific provisions related to the CHNA requirements that the Treasury Department (“Treasury”) and the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) anticipate will be included in regulations to be proposed under section 501(r). This notice also invites comments from the public regarding the CHNA requirements…

Section 501(r)(3)(A) provides that a hospital organization meets the CHNA requirements with respect to any taxable year only if the organization (i) has
conducted a CHNA that meets the requirements of section 501(r)(3)(B) in such taxable year or in either of the two taxable years immediately preceding such
taxable year, and (ii) has adopted an implementation strategy to meet the community health needs identified through such CHNA. Section 501(r)(3)(B)
requires that a CHNA (i) take into account input from persons who represent the broad interests of the community served by the hospital facility, including those with special knowledge of or expertise in public health, and (ii) be made widely available to the public. Although most of the requirements under section 501(r) are effective for taxable years beginning after March 23, 2010, the CHNA requirements are effective for taxable years beginning after March 23, 2012. See section 9007(f)(2) of the Affordable Care Act….

(3) A description of how the hospital organization took into account input from persons who represent the broad interests of the community served by the hospital facility (as defined in section 3.06 of this notice), including a description of when and how the organization consulted with these persons (whether through meetings, focus groups, interviews, surveys, written correspondence, etc.). If the hospital organization takes into account input from an organization, the written report should identify the organization and provide the name and title of at least one individual in such organization with whom the hospital organization consulted. In addition, the report must identify any individual providing input who has special knowledge of or expertise in public health (as provided in paragraph (1) of section 3.06 of this notice) by name, title, and affiliation and provide a brief description of the individual’s special knowledge or expertise. The report also must identify any individual providing input who is a “leader” or “representative” of populations described in paragraph (3) of section 3.06 of this notice by name and describe the nature of the individual’s leadership or representative role.