Downers Grove, Ill. — Advocate Health Care, Illinois’ largest integrated health care system, announced today that it provided $686 million in charitable care and community services in 2015.
“Our contributions are a reflection of our unwavering commitment to building healthy communities and delivering the best and safest care possible,” said Jim Skogsbergh, president and CEO of Advocate Health Care. “The dedicated physicians, nurses, associates and volunteers of our health care ministry continue to work both within and beyond our hospital walls to heal and care for those we are so privileged to serve.”
Overall, the system provided more than $517 million in charity care and other uncompensated costs, including free and discounted care for the uninsured and underinsured, and care without full imbursement from Medicare and Medicaid. Nearly $24 million was spent on subsidized health services including not only hospital-based services, such as trauma care, but also community health focused activities. For example, Advocate funded school-based health centers that provide physicals to low-income, uninsured and underinsured children, immunization clinics focused on ceasing the spread of preventable illnesses, and health education and screenings to identify at-risk individuals and to prevent or promote self-management of disease. Advocate also implemented programs in response to its communities’ unique needs as determined through its hospitals’ community health needs assessments.
The system’s generous cash donations to support other not-for-profit community organizations, as well as its in-kind donations of equipment, supplies and clinic space, totaled nearly $5.9 million last year. The value of Advocate associates’ time volunteering in the community and the time that volunteers from the community devote to Advocate totaled an additional $5.5 million. Advocate also dramatically increased its provision of medical education and training to over $128 million last year.
Advocate continued to make significant investments in language assistance services in 2015, with contributions nearing $5.3 million. These services offer non-English speaking and deaf and hard of hearing patients access to interpreters at Advocate’s multiple sites of care.
As part of its annual Community Benefits Report, a detailed breakdown of Advocate’s contributions was recently filed with the state.
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About Advocate Health Care
Advocate Health Care is the largest health system in Illinois and one of the largest health care providers in the Midwest. A national leader in population health management, Advocate is one of the largest Accountable Care Organizations in the country. Advocate operates more than 350 sites of care and 12 hospitals, including two of the nation’s 100 Top Hospitals, the state’s largest integrated children’s network, five Level I trauma centers (the state’s highest designation in trauma care), three Level II trauma centers, one of the area’s largest home health and hospice companies and one of the region’s largest medical groups. Advocate Health Care trains more primary care physicians and residents at its four teaching hospitals than any other health system in the state. As a not-for-profit, mission-based health system affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the United Church of Christ, Advocate contributed $686 million in charitable care and services to communities across Chicagoland and Central Illinois in 2015.