Every person deserves equitable, affordable access to quality health care services.
New Hampshire’s hospitals are committed to ensuring patients get the care they need regardless of their ability to pay for that care. Providing health care to those that cannot afford to pay is part of the mission of New Hampshire’s hospitals, and hospitals across the state provide financial assistance, charity care, and self-pay discounts based on family size and income. State law requires hospitals to provide free and discounted inpatient and outpatient care. Each hospital is responsible for maintaining its own charity care program. If you need health insurance coverage or would like to learn more, please visit our partner, the Foundation for Healthy Communities.
Hospitals and health systems across the state play a vital role in educating their patients about their health insurance options and helping them navigate the Health Insurance Marketplace. If you don’t have health insurance at all or are having difficulty finding a health insurance plan that works for you and your family, there are a broad variety of plans available, and depending on the plan available to you, you may be able to get coverage for bills already incurred—even though you didn’t have insurance at the time you were in the hospital.
NHHA advocates on state and federal efforts that aim to expand access to care and was instrumental in ensuring the passage of Medicaid Expansion under the New Hampshire Health Protection Plan (NHHPP) in 2014. In January 2019, the Granite Advantage Health Care Program replaced NHHPP and continues to provide health insurance coverage for more than 45,000 New Hampshire residents at little or no cost through the state’s Medicaid Care Management Program (MCM) plans. Since its inception in 2014, Medicaid expansion in New Hampshire has successfully reduced the number of uninsured patients seeking care in emergency rooms, reduced the amount of uncompensated care provided by hospitals to those without insurance, and reduced the cost shift to those with insurance.
The New Hampshire Hospital Association and its member hospitals are committed to ensuring that New Hampshire residents continue to have affordable access to the quality care they need, when and where they need it.
