About Cincinnati Children's

How Cincinnati Children’s Benefits the Community

Cincinnati Children’s delivered $505.6 million in community benefit services in fiscal 2020. The numbers at a glance:

Charitable Patient Care | $280,246,996

Free or discounted services for those unable to pay and Medicaid shortfall.

Research | $134,582,419

Laboratory science and applied research costs that are supported by internal or eligible grant funding.

Subsidized Health Services | $11,247,351

Clinical services operated at a financial loss, including mental health and primary care.

Community Outreach | $15,744,147

Programs that provide services or support directly to the community or to nonprofit organizations with similar missions of service, including health education, injury prevention and wellness initiatives.

Health Professionals Education | $63,825,423

Cost of providing education to prospective physicians and healthcare professionals, less federal support of our graduate medical education program.

Questions & Answers

What is community benefit?

Community benefit encompasses programs or activities that provide treatment, or promote health and healing, in response to identified community needs.

While Cincinnati Children’s has become a national and international leader in pediatrics, we remain deeply rooted in the community that has been our home since 1883. We are committed to providing community benefit, including services that are discounted or subsidized by Cincinnati Children’s or other funding sources.

We demonstrate our commitment to children and families in Hamilton County and Greater Cincinnati by investing significant resources in programs and services that meet these community benefit objectives:

Improve access to healthcare
Enhance the health of the community
Advance medical or healthcare knowledge
Lessen the burden on government or other community efforts

What are the objectives and criteria used at Cincinnati Children’s to calculate community benefit?

At least one objective and its criteria must be met to report an activity as community benefit.

1. Improve access to health services

The program is available broadly to the public.
The program participants include vulnerable or underserved persons.
A barrier to access is reduced or eliminated.
If the program ceased to exist, the community would lose access to a needed service.

2. Enhance the health of the community

The program is designed around public health goals and principles, such as eliminating health disparities
The program yields measurable improvements in health status.
The community's health status would decline if the program ceased to exist.
A public health agency provides comparable services. (However, a community benefit program should not unnecessarily duplicate or compete with a public program.)
The program is operated in collaboration with public health partners.

3. Advance medical or healthcare knowledge

The program trains health professionals/students as they advance toward health profession degrees or other credentials.
The organization does not require trainees to join the staff.
Health professional continuing education programs are open to professionals in the community, not exclusively for the organization's employees and physicians.
The program involves research, with findings available broadly to the public within a reasonable period of time.

4. Lessen the burden on government or other community efforts

The program relieves a government financial or programmatic burden.
Government provides the same or a similar service (for example, immunizations). However, do not unnecessarily duplicate and compete with a government activity.
Government provides support of the activity.
If the program were closed, cost to government or another tax-exempt organization would increase.
The program receives philanthropic support through community volunteers or contributions.

How does Cincinnati Children’s act as a safety net for children?

As our region’s pediatric safety net hospital, Cincinnati Children’s has a longstanding commitment to serve every child in our primary service area, regardless of ability to pay. To meet the needs of low-income families, we provide many essential services including primary care and dental care in addition to hospital and emergency care. Currently 43 percent of our patient encounters are covered by Medicaid. In fiscal 2012, there was a 15 percent gap between the cost of providing care to these children and the amount we were reimbursed. In addition, Cincinnati Children’s is committed to providing much-needed mental health services, despite poor reimbursement from both commercial and public insurance. In 2011, Cincinnati Children’s launched a collaboration with the Lindner Center of HOPE to expand access to mental health care for families in our community.

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