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ASACB Content Categories and Accounting Guidelines
Content Categories
ASACB Content Categories are the broad groupings of activities that may be considered as community benefit. These include:
- Community health services
- Health professions education
- Subsidized clinical care
- Research
- Financial contribution
- Community building activities
- Community benefit operations
- Charity care
- Government-sponsored health care
ASACB Content Categories were developed using the Community Benefit Inventory for Social Accountability (CBISA), Version 5. CBISA was developed by the Catholic Health Association of the United States (CHA). A software version of CBISA was collaboratively developed by CHA and VHA, Inc. and designed by Lyon Software, Inc. to facilitate the documentation of community benefit activities on facility or system-wide basis.
In the development of the ASACB Content Categories, feedback was solicited and materials shared with a variety of internal and external stakeholders. At the completion of the process, consensus was reached with CHA and VHA representatives on all but a few proposed revisions. These revisions are reflected in CBISA, Version 6.
Accounting Guidelines
The ASACB Accounting Guidelines provide definitive guidance in five specific areas where complexity and/or a lack of clarity have contributed to significant variation in the volume of resources documented as community benefit. The areas are:
- Direct and indirect costs
- Calculating paid time off
- Use of hospital space by outside groups
- Physician emergency department on-call costs
- Provider recruitment costs
Discussion of the ASACB Content Categories may be found on page 22 of the ASACB User’s Guide and Accounting Guidelines are detailed beginning on page 18.
