Sec. 52.5. (a) “Charity care”, for purposes of IC 16-21-6 and IC 16-21-9, means the unreimbursed cost to a hospital of providing, funding, or otherwise financially supporting health care services:

(1) to a person classified by the hospital as financially indigent or medically indigent on an inpatient or outpatient basis; and

(2) to financially indigent patients through other nonprofit or public outpatient clinics, hospitals, or health care organizations.

     (b) As used in this section, “financially indigent” means an uninsured or underinsured person who is accepted for care with no obligation or a discounted obligation to pay for the services rendered based on the hospital’s financial criteria and procedure used to determine if a patient is eligible for charity care. The criteria and procedure must include income levels and means testing indexed to the federal poverty guidelines. A hospital may determine that a person is financially or medically indigent under the hospital’s eligibility system after health care services are provided.

     (c) As used in this section, “medically indigent” means a person whose medical or hospital bills after payment by third party payors exceed a specified percentage of the patient’s annual gross income as determined in accordance with the hospital’s eligibility system, and who is financially unable to pay the remaining bill.

As added by P.L.94-1994, SEC.1.