But the complex finances behind these gripping dramas don t script quite so well in Hollywood. Teaching hospitals in the United States provide 44 percent of all indigent care, and they train 75 percent of all residents in this country, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. The vast majority of clinical research is also performed at teaching hospitals. The survival of these entities is clearly in everyone s interest. Yet the financial support of teaching hospitals is a patchwork affair, loose in some places, worn through in others.
Some support comes through patient care.
Through Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, or other programs, most patients furnish some payment for their own care. In addition, hospitals receive some subsidies for the care of low-income patients, and physicians who coordinate their practices through hospital facilities contribute toward common hospital expenses. Teaching hospitals are major medical resources for their regions. Ideally, all parts of the health-care industry would contribute proportionately to these special costs, because all sectors benefit. Since the inception of Medicare, the federal government has committed to carrying its share of these extra costs.