Terms Used In California Codes > Health and Safety Code > Division 107 > Part 2 > Chapter 2 > Article 2 - Hospitals: Community Benefits

• Charity: An agency, institution, or organization in existence and operating for the benefit of an indefinite number of persons and conducted for educational, religious, scientific, medical, or other beneficent purposes.
• Charity care: means free health services provided without expectation of payment to persons who meet the organization's criteria for financial assistance and are unable to pay for all or a portion of the services. See California Health and Safety Code 127345
• Community: means the service areas or patient populations for which the hospital provides health care services. See California Health and Safety Code 127345
• community benefit: means a hospital's activities that are intended to address community needs and priorities primarily through disease prevention and improvement of health status, including, but not limited to, any of the following:

  California Health and Safety Code 127345

• Community benefits plan: means the written document prepared for annual submission to the Department of Health Care Access and Information that shall include, but shall not be limited to, a description of the activities that the hospital has undertaken in order to address identified community needs within its mission and financial capacity, and the process by which the hospital developed the plan in consultation with the community. See California Health and Safety Code 127345
• Community needs: means those requisites for improvement or maintenance of health status in the community. See California Health and Safety Code 127345
• Community needs assessment: means the process by which the hospital identifies, for its primary service area as determined by the hospital, unmet community needs. See California Health and Safety Code 127345
• Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
• County: includes city and county. See California Health and Safety Code 14
• department: means State Department of Health Services. See California Health and Safety Code 20
• Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
• Fraud: Intentional deception resulting in injury to another.
• Hospital: means a private not-for-profit acute hospital licensed under subdivision (a), (b), or (f) of Section 1250 and is owned by a corporation that has been determined to be exempt from taxation under the United States Internal Revenue Code. See California Health and Safety Code 127345
• Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
• Mission statement: means a hospital's primary objectives for operation as adopted by its governing body. See California Health and Safety Code 127345
• Nolo contendere: No contest-has the same effect as a plea of guilty, as far as the criminal sentence is concerned, but may not be considered as an admission of guilt for any other purpose.
• Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
• Person: means any person, firm, association, organization, partnership, business trust, corporation, limited liability company, or company. See California Health and Safety Code 19
• Person: includes any person, firm, partnership, association, corporation, company, limited liability company, syndicate, estate, trust, business trust, or organization of any kind. See California Financial Code 18
• State: means the State of California, unless applied to the different parts of the United States. See California Health and Safety Code 23
• Vulnerable populations: means any population that is exposed to medical or financial risk by virtue of being uninsured, underinsured, or eligible for Medi-Cal, Medicare, California Children's Services Program, or county indigent programs. See California Health and Safety Code 127345