Uncompensated care are services provided that are never reimbursed, including charity care and unanticipated bad debt. High uncompensated care burden is a concern because it may contribute to smaller operating margins and rural hospital closures.

This infographic, COVID-19 Affected Rural and Urban Hospital Uncompensated Care, compliments previous work The NC Rural Health Research Program has produced on uncompensated care. For the infographic. We used Medicare Cost Report data for all acute care hospitals from the Healthcare Cost Report Information System (excluding Indian Health Services hospitals for which data are unavailable). We include a balanced panel of hospitals with cost reports for fiscal periods ending on or before 12/31/2021 (n=3,274). to study the association of uncompensated care with operating margin.