The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the ACA), enacted March 23, 2010, outlines the requirements a hospital should comply with in order to maintain its tax-exempt status as a non-profit hospital. One of these is the requirement to operate and maintain a Financial Assistance Policy (FAP).

Financial Assistance Policies ensure that Hospitals provide free or discounted services for households that fall under certain household incomes.  These thresholds are based on the HHS Poverty Guidelines and are updated yearly.

Goodbill knows what these thresholds are, so in order to ascertain whether a patient qualifies, asks the patient for their household income, through the "Charity Care" task.

If the threshold is under the documented poverty amount, Goodbill will redirect the customer to Dollar For, for help in applying for a possible 100% reduction.

Goodbill also knows the likely discount that a hospital is likely to give, should a household income be X% over the poverty threshold.  If a customer’s household income is within the discount threshold for the selected hospital, Goodbill will again redirect the patient to Dollar For, but lets the patient know that this is likely for a partial discount, rather than a 100% discount.  An example of a hospital’s sliding scale for household income vs discount can be found here.

If the household income is over the 100% or Discount threshold for the hospital, then the customer does not qualify for financial assistance, so continues with Goodbill.