Scripps Invests $50.4 Million Into Community Benefits in Central San Diego

Scripps divides community benefit services into three categories: uncompensated health care, community health improvement services and professional education and health research.

Uncompensated care accounted for the largest portion of Scripps’ community benefit efforts throughout San Diego County, more than $316 million in fiscal 2015.

In central San Diego, uncompensated care totaled $38.7 million including:

• $15.8 million in under-reimbursed care (underpayment from Medi-Cal, Medicare and other government programs).
• Nearly $15 million in charity care (for people without insurance who did not qualify for government assistance). Scripps Mercy San Diego and Scripps Mercy Chula Vista accounted for 59 percent of the $36.9 million that Scripps spent in charity care.
• More than $1.4 million in bad debt (failure to pay by patients whose health care was not classified as charity care).
• Close to $6.5 million in subsidized health services.

Scripps also invested $10.2 million in professional education and health research at Scripps Mercy Hospital San Diego, including Graduate Medical Education (GME). It devoted more than $1.1 million into community health services, including the Scripps City Heights Wellness Center, the Mercy Outreach Surgical Team and prevention and wellness programs.

Scripps Health employees and affiliated physicians collectively volunteered 1,961 hours in support of Scripps-sponsored community benefit programs, the equivalent of about $92,000 in volunteer labor. (Volunteer hours are mentioned in the report but are not part of the community benefit total.)

Scripps collaborates with other health systems, community groups and government agencies as well as business and grassroots organizations to serve the greatest patient population needs and prioritize investments in the health and well-being of the community.

The Community Benefit Report is the system’s annual response to Senate Bill 697, a 1994 state law that requires private, nonprofit hospitals to document the full range of community benefits they provide on a yearly basis. Scripps takes this legislative requirement a step further by incorporating community benefit activities from throughout the system, including Scripps’ five acute-care hospital campuses, home health care services, hospice care, wellness centers and clinics.

Learn more about Scripps Health, a nonprofit integrated health system in San Diego, Calif.