OHA announces community benefits reporting initiative

Hospitals operate in an environment nowadays where the cost and characteristics of rendering care are causing government officials, the media and the public at-large to increasingly ask questions about the ‘value of services’ hospitals bring to their communities. We in the provider community know we have an important and valid story to tell about how we extend ourselves to help our communities.

In many instances hospitals can measure the financial value they provide to their communities, but many benefits can only be measured in the lives that are made better and healthier as a result of what hospitals do, both inside and outside the walls of their organizations. It is vital to the advocacy efforts of the Oklahoma Hospital Association that we can clearly convey the collective benefits our members provide across Oklahoma.

As announced at our 2008 regional meetings, the OHA is offering a special opportunity to assist your hospital in telling its story to your community. In doing so, you greatly aid the OHA in emphasizing the collective benefit of such stories to policymakers and the public.

Our statewide community benefit reporting initiative uses a new, free service made available by Lyon Software. Lyon’s Community Benefit Inventory for Social Accountability (CBISA) – which is based on reporting guidelines developed by the Catholic Health Association (CHA) and VHA, Inc. - has been the preferred tool for hospital community benefit reporting since 1990. Today more than 1,000 hospitals and health systems are using CBISA as their community benefit tracking and reporting tool.

OHA members can take advantage of a free, online version of CBISA known as “CBISA Survey.” This will help your hospital track statistics, costs and stories associated with the community benefits provided by your hospital, while allowing OHA access to your data in a statewide “rollup.” All information released publicly by OHA will be aggregated, and individual hospital information will only be released with permission from each hospital organization.

For hospitals required to file a Form 990 tax return, CBISA should be a valuable tool. The free “CBISA Survey” will help with Schedule H requirements, but 990 filers may want to consider licensing Lyon’s main product, CBISA Online.

If you have any questions about the community benefit project, please call Rick Snyder at (405) 427-9537, or rsnyder@okoha.com.