Alegent Health’s charity care and financial assistance programs provide compassionate, generous, appropriate service to our uninsured and underinsured patients.
• A financial assistance counselor works in partnership with patients admitted without adequate insurance to identify appropriate assistance with bills, including Alegent Health’s own financial assistance program.
• Alegent Health relies on HUD very low-income guidelines to offer assistance on a sliding scale for those without the ability to pay. Uninsured and underinsured patients at roughly 400% of the federal poverty level are eligible for significant assistance.
• Alegent Health limits catastrophic bills to 20% of a family’s annual income to ease the burden of a catastrophic illness or injury regardless of family income.
Alegent Health fulfills its commitment to care for this community’s uninsured, underinsured and low-income.
• Alegent Health provided direct financial assistance to approximately 6,500 uninsured people in 2004 — about 4,000 more than in 2002.
• Alegent Health devotes significant resources to charity care, community program support and underpaid Medicare and Medicaid costs. In fiscal year 2004 alone, Alegent Health spent roughly $5 million providing charity care for uninsured and underinsured patients and about $11 million in support of community health and wellness programs.
Alegent Health remains responsive to the community’s growing and changing healthcare needs.
• Alegent Health is the only remaining private inpatient mental health provider in Omaha and a vital safety net for this vulnerable population.
• Alegent Health has preserved hospitals that were at risk of closing (Nebraska: Blair and Schuyler; and Iowa: Missouri Valley).
• Alegent Health created the Ike Friedman Community Health Plaza to enable local health and community service agencies to focus resources on direct services through shared space, equipment and services in a cooperative-use building.
• Alegent Health has served western Douglas County and the surrounding communities since 1992, and recently opened in the new Lakeside Hospital to serve the area’s changing needs.
