Hospitals: community benefits.

Existing law requires certain private not-for-profit acute hospitals to, every 3 years, complete a community needs assessment, as defined, and to annually adopt and update a community benefits plan, as defined. Existing law exempts certain hospitals from these provisions, including small and rural hospitals. Existing law requires a hospital to file a report on its community benefits plan and the activities undertaken to address community needs with the Statewide Office of Health Planning and Development. Existing law requires the office to make those reports available to the public. This bill would revise and recast these provisions to, among other things, specify the elements that are required to be included in a community health needs assessment (CHNA) report, which would replace the community benefits plan, and delete the exemption from these requirements for small and rural hospitals. The bill would instead require a hospital to adopt the CHNA report every 3 years, and to submit an update of the activities conducted under the report to the office annually. The bill would require the CHNA report to be widely available to the public, as prescribed.