Non-profit Ill. hospital must pay property tax
Court: Hosp. didn't offer enough charity care.
The decision is the culmination of a five-year fight over whether Provena Covenant Medical Center, a Catholic hospital in Urbana, provided enough of a benefit to the community to justify the tax break. Provena came under scrutiny by state regulators for its aggressive collection policies, especially toward uninsured patients.
“The record showed, however, that during the period in question here, Provena Hospitals did not advertise the availability of charitable care at PCMC. Patients were billed as a matter of course, and unpaid bills were automatically referred to collection agencies,” Justice Lloyd Karmeier wrote for the court.
“As a practical matter, there was little to distinguish the way in which Provena Hospitals dispensed its 'charity' from the way in which a for-profit institution would write off bad debt,” he added.
