WASHINGTON, D.C. – Despite being tax-exempt, nonprofit hospitals across the country are making big money at the expense of their patients. The North Dakota Hospital Scorecard was created based on recent findings from the Lown Institute, PatientsRightsAdvocate.org, and others that uncovered troubling practices at hospitals in North Dakota. These practices are at odds with what the public expects from charitable organizations, especially since North Dakota nonprofit hospitals receive hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks each year.

In response to these troubling findings, Consumers for Quality Care (CQC) released the following statement:

Nonprofit hospitals in North Dakota are putting their own financial gain ahead of their patients’ well-being. This is despite the fact that these hospitals are charitable organizations that pocket collectively tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks each year. These nonprofit hospitals are charging huge mark-ups for care, leaving patients with mountains of medical debt, and the law in North Dakota affords few protections to patients faced with aggressive debt collection tactics. This cannot be allowed to continue. Nonprofit hospitals should be made to put patients first, before their bottom lines. When they fail to do so, they should be held accountable.