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Oregon Hospitals Community Benefit

Community benefit is all the health care-related services that Oregon's community hospitals provide, without compensation, to address critical health needs in the community. These services include health services to vulnerable or underserved people; financial or in-kind support for public health programs; health education, screening, and prevention services; medical research; medical education; and more. Oregon's community hospitals provide these benefits through financial assistance, charity care and subsidies for services otherwise not available in the community.

Oregon's community hospitals and health systems are driven by a mission to provide high-quality health care that extends beyond the hospital walls. They are dedicated to promoting and improving the health of local communities and their residents by providing a range of vital services to meet the unique needs of the communities they serve. Much of what influences our health happens outside of the doctor's office - in our schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods. Hospitals share a common goal of improving the health of Oregonians and lowering the cost of care. 

For more information, including an interactive dashboard that lets you search contributions by hospital, see our 2022 Community Benefit Report. 
 

Hospital Community Benefit Data

Hospitals report community benefit data annually. Apprise Health Insights, OAHHS’s data and analytics subsidiary, maintains a data dashboard which displays the data at a system-view or at a hospital-level view. The dashboard can be accessed here: 
https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/apprisehealthinsights/viz/FY2020CommunityBenefitDashboard/WelcomePage

For a printer friendly version of the most recent data, click here to be directed to a report.
 

What Counts as Community Benefit?

Community Benefit encompasses a wide range of services that respond to specific, identified health needs. To find out what counts as Community Benefit and what does not, click here. 

Oregon’s Community Benefit Minimum Spending Floor (HB 3076)

With the passage of HB 3076 in 2019, the Oregon State Legislature created a community benefit minimum spending floor program for Oregon’s hospitals and their affiliated clinics. The bill allows hospitals to choose the grouping the spending floor is applied to, including but not limited to:

  • Each individual hospital and all of the hospital's non-profit affiliated clinics
  • A hospital and a group of the hospital’s nonprofit affiliated clinics
  • All the hospitals that are under common ownership and control and all of the hospitals’ nonprofit affiliated clinics.
The Oregon Health Authority is required to apply the spending floor every two years, and calculate the spending floor for each year, two years at a time. For details about how the spending floor is calculated and to view a hospital’s assigned minimum spending floor, visit the OHA website here: https://www.oregon.gov/oha/HPA/ANALYTICS/Pages/Hospital-Reporting.aspx (scroll down to the “Community Benefit Minimum Spending Floor drop down)

Community Health Needs Assessments and Improvement Plans

To inform community benefit spending, hospitals are required to conduct a community health needs assessment (CHNA) and develop and community health improvement plan (CHIP). The CHNA is conducted every three years with the hospital’s community. CHNAs focus not only on health care needs but also the community’s socioeconomic needs.

The Oregon Health Authority maintains a list of current CNHAs and CHIPs for each hospital, found here: https://www.oregon.gov/oha/HPA/ANALYTICS/Pages/hospital-index.aspx