Hospitals, Proprietary

Catholic hospitals maintain a significant presence in delivering hospital services in the United States, but little is known about the ways they differ from other ownership forms in similar market environments. This paper analyzes characteristics of Catholic, other private nonprofit, and investor-owned hospitals in metropolitan areas of the United States to identify the extent to which Catholic hospitals differ from other ownership types on three dimensions of mission-driven identity--access, stigmatized, and compassionate care services.

For centuries, the Catholic Church has been a major social actor in the provision of health services, particularly health care delivered in hospitals. Through a confluence of powerful environmental forces at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the future of Catholic health care is threatened. Although Catholic hospitals are a separate case of private, nonprofit hospitals, they have experienced environmental pressures to become isomorphic with other hospital ownership types and, on some dimensions, they are equal.

While some hospital chains may seem like predators, that's not Quorum's style. The Brentwood, Tenn., system prefers to win friends and hospitals by highlighting its major strength: not-for-profit management.

While some hospital chains may seem like predators, that's not Quorum's style. The Brentwood, Tenn., system prefers to win friends and hospitals by highlighting its major strength: not-for-profit management.

This paper examines the effect of changing state policy, such as Medicaid eligibility, payment generosity, and HMO enrollment on provision of hospital uncompensated care. Using national data from the American Hospital Association for the period 1990 through 1995, we find that not-for-profit and public hospitals' uncompensated care levels respond positively to Medicaid payment generosity, although the magnitude of the effect is small. Not-for-profit hospitals respond negatively to Medicaid HMO penetration.

Chiropractors have been excluded from postgraduate training in medical hospitals since the time such programs were mandated following World War II. Recently, a chiropractic residency program has been established at Lindell Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. This paper briefly describes the development of this program and the functions carried out by the chiropractic resident in the hospital environment. It then attempts to define a future direction for such residency programs.